SourceForge
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SourceForge is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free and open source software applications (such as PostgreSQL and Subversion). SourceForge is sold by VA Software.
While originally itself open source software, SourceForge was commercialized as v2.5 prototype code and eventually relicensed under a proprietary software license as SourceForge Enterprise Edition. The original codebase was forked by the GNU project as Savane. It was also later forked as GForge by one of the SourceForge programmers.
SourceForge Enterprise Edition is the platform currently used to power the SourceForge.net website as of March 2007.
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[edit] Product comparison
The differences between SourceForge.net technology and SourceForge Enterprise Edition stem from their intended use, architecture and feature set. This is manifested in four key areas:Architecture and Integration Readiness, Security, Easy of Use / User Interface, and its Features and Tools.
SourceForge.net Technology: 1. The technology was built to power a public web site for Open Source development with maximum transparency and speed 2. Built using common scripting languages (PHP, Python, Perl) together with many Open Source components 3. Underlying code was not designed for integration with enterprise systems and therefore does not feature an integration-ready architecture nor API 4. Code was not designed to provide secure access controls, encryption, and other security features
By comparison, SourceForge Enterprise Edition Technology 1. Is an enterprise-grade solution that was designed for secure, robust operation behind a corporate firewall 2. Has been architected and built from the ground up for enterprise integration, extensibility, security and ease of use 3. Built on a J2EE platform that features a modular web services oriented architecture (SOA), open API and complementary SDK 4. Provides the extra features, security, reporting capabilities and ease-of-use required by a broad range of enterprise users
[edit] Benefits to open source projects
The important main tabs for a project page in SourceForge.net are Admin, Forums, Tasks, Mailing Lists and Download Files. Developers can even manage and schedule tasks, with automatic emailing to assignees, and even Forums can be monitored via email, rather than browse constantly.
Bugs and Feature Requests allow owners to keep track of their development work. Administrators can also limit certain forums to members only, or act in unregulated manner that may even completely go against the noble intent of SF.net to keep everything open.
For project owners to get the most out of the SF.net and gain market share, they have to be themselves highly active in the forums, very conversant with newbies, and basically doing all their activities there to make their ratings rise as well as prove their visibility for surfers to stay on.
