An Open Source Challenge!

The SQL Power Group has announced a unique competition that challenges open source programmers to “Make or Break” their newest free software offering. The group is offering some T-shirts and USB drives for anyone who can dissect the “Power*MatchMaker Data Cleansing Tool.”

Instead of the traditional business model where a company begins to boast that they have the best product, the SQL Power Group is trying to prove they indeed have the best. The “Make it or Break It” contest challenges anyone in the worldwide community to find bugs in the new MatchMaker software.

MatchMaker is a Data Cleansing Tool designed to run on any database platform to maximize data quality. The cross-platform, easy-to-use, and free to deploy software would make it an invaluable tool for database users if it works as well as the company says that it does.

Jonathan Fuerth, lead programmer at SQL Power notes, “It’s partly a thank-you to the community for making (our previous Open Source release) the Power*Architect a success… but it’s mainly to remind them that Open Source is only as good as they make it.”

And what more could a contestant want than a T-shirt that gives bragging rights as the programmer that beat the code.