Sourceforge.Net -- A Brief Study

May 7, 2003 (Yue)

0. Resources

• http://sourceforge.net/: the source.

1. Background

• "SourceForge.net is the world's largest Open Source software development website."
• As of May 7, 2003: Hosted Projects: 61,372; Registered Users: 619,301.
• "The mission of SourceForge.net is to enrich the Open Source community by providing a centralized place for Open Source developers to control and manage Open Source software development."

2. Services

• Basis: http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=753&group_id=1#top
• SourceForge Collaborative Development System (CDS) web tools:
  • post news items
  • easily administrate your development team
  • post "help wanted" items related to your project, and
  • manage the use of services
• Project Web Server: up to 100MB.
• Tracker: Tools for Managing Support:
  • bug reporting facilities,
  • the means for your users to submit support requests,
  • the means for developers to easily submit patches for your review,
  • a suggestion box where people can post feature requests.
  • email update to involved party.
  • view statistical details of project support
• Mailing lists and discussion forums
  • implement a strong spam prevention system
  • administrate your mailing list is provided via a web interface
• Releasing your software
  • Increase visibility
  • Performance: 3000+ concurrent HTTP connections.
• Shell services and compile farm
  • Shell via SSH.
  • crontab: running daemon
  • various OS and languages
• MySQL Database Services
• Project CVS Services
• VHOST Services: answer traffic for user domain
• Trove Listing: a massive searchable database of Open Source projects
• SourceForge.net Foundries are topic-focused areas where developers connect and collaborate around software development.

2. Modeling

• Developors:
  • Administrator
  • First level support
  • Second level support

3. Attracting Volunteers

• Help wanted list
• Project of the month
• Most active
• Top downloads
• Latest news