A comparison of Free Software Web Portals

Vanessa P. BraganholoMarta Mattoso

{vanessa,marta}@cos.ufrj.br

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Outline

Motivation Methodology Web Portals Comparison and Conclusion

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Outline

MotivationMotivation Methodology Web Portals Comparison and Conclusion

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Motivation

Free Software FreedomsFreedoms in the Free Software definition need to

be accomplished Freedom of “studyingstudying and adaptingadapting the code

according to the user needs”

Source code needs to be publiclypublicly availableavailable

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Motivation

Most users use Web Portals to make their code widely available

Web portals Provide accessaccess to the source code Offer toolstools to support the development of Free

Software Version Control Systems Forums Bug Tracking Mailing Lists …

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Motivation

SeveralSeveral Web Portals available Each of them offer different advantages (tools)

to the users

How to choosechoose among so many options?

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Main Goal

Help users to make this decision

We have studied 7 of the most used Web Portals We present them and compare them, hoping this

will help users in choosing one of them

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Studied Portals

1) Source Forge

2) Apache

3) Tigris

4) ObjectWeb

5) Savannah

6) Código Livre (a Brazilian portal)

7) Java.net

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Outline

Motivation MethodologyMethodology Web Portals Comparison and Conclusion

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Methodology

Analyzed portals have publicpublic and privateprivate areas

Most of the times, details on how the portals work are in the private areas

Because of this… We have created a new usernew user for each of the portals We have followed all the steps to the creation of a

new projectnew project in each of the studied portals

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Methodology

The creation of the project was not confirmednot confirmed We have used “fake data” Portals require projects to be approvedapproved before

being hosted (to avoid “fake projects”)

We could not access the private area of the projects

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Methodology

To overcome this limitation… We have looked at the public areaspublic areas of the projects

hosted in each portal This helped us to identify the available optionsavailable options,

and what could be hiddenhidden from external users In some cases, this (plus analysis of

documentation) was not enough to answer some of the questions we have raised in our evaluation

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Open Source x Free Software

Most of the portals we have studied are OpenOpen SourceSource portals

The goals of the Free Software and Open Source community are quite similar

Open Source portals can host Free Software as well

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Evaluation

1) Project registrationProject registration: what are the requirements for the registration of a new project on the portal?

2) Version controlVersion control: does the portal offer version control systems?

3) ForumForum: does it offer forums?

4) Mailing listsMailing lists: are mailing lists available?

5) Project Web PageProject Web Page: does the portal supply a web page for the project?

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Evaluation

6) BugsBugs: does it offer bug tracking?

7) DocumentationDocumentation: does it have tools to support the documentation of the project?

8) Intellectual PropertyIntellectual Property: does the portal preserve the intellectual property to the projects owner?

9) SupportSupport: does it require the developers to provide support even after the project is finished?

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Evaluation

10) Task ManagementTask Management: does it have tools to support task management?

11) BackupBackup: does it provide automatic backups of the repositories in the version control system?

12) Customization of public areaCustomization of public area: does it allow the developer to customize the public area (remove unwanted items from the public view)?

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Outline

Motivation Methodology Web PortalsWeb Portals Comparison and Conclusion

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Common Features

All of the portals require that the project be approvedapproved before being hosted

Distribution licenseDistribution license must be chosen at project registration time Standard license such as GPL, LGPL, BSG, etc. Customized (new) license – this may make the

project approval time to take longer ExceptionException: ObjectWeb recommends LGPLLGPL – other

licenses are allowed on very special cincunstances

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Common Features

It is not necessary to have source codesource code available at project registration time The goal of the portals is to help the project

development (tools)

Only registered usersregistered users can submit project hosting requests

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Common Features

Version Control Systems Can be used by developers Read-only anonymous access to outside users

Anonymous check-outs Some of the portals provide ways of blocking such

external access

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Source Forgewww.sourceforge.net

Hosts tens of thousands of projects

Main goalMain goal: provide a centralized place where developers can control and manage the development of their projects

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Source Forgewww.sourceforge.net

Project Registration Type of project (software, documentation, web site,

peer-to-peer software, game, content management system, operational system distribution, pre-compiled package of existing software, software internationalization )

Term agreement Project description (short) Choose project name Project is approved or rejected in about 2 days

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Source Forge – Advantages

Forums CVS Mailing lists (public or private) Project web page Documentation (DocManager) Task management Automatic backup of the version control

repository

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Source Forge – Advantages

Trackers Bugs Support Requests Feature Requests Patches

All of these tools can be configured to be visible or hidden to external users

It is possible to request help from external users

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Example of hosted projects

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hsqldb/ Example where CVS is not public:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/

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Apachewww.apache.org

Maintained by the Apache Software Foundation

Loss of intellectual property: projects hosted there must be donated to the Apache Foundation The Foundation gets the responsibility of deciding

how the project should be developed

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Apachewww.apache.org

Project Submission: through the “Apache Incubator Project” Project stays incubatedincubated until it is mature enough to

become an official project of the Apache Foundation

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Apache - Advantages

Version Control System (CVS or Subversion) Mailing Lists (which can be exclusive for the

project or in conjunction with the Incubator Project)

Web page Documentation (Apache Forrest) Bug tracking Task Management.

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Example of incubated project

http://incubator.apache.org/projects/wsrp4j.html

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Tigriswww.tigris.org

It only hosts projects related to its mission: developing tools to support collaborative collaborative

development development Project Registration

Project should fit into one of the categories: construction, deployment, design, issue track, libraries,

personal, process, profession, requirements, SCM, students, techcomm and testing

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Tigris – Advantages

Mailing Lists Task Management Bug tracking Web page for the project News CVS or Subversion Forums

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Example of hosted project

http://argouml.tigris.org/

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ObjectWebwww.objectweb.org

Consortium created in 1999 to promote the development of Open Source Software

Maintained by INRIA (Research Lab in France)

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ObjectWebwww.objectweb.org

Projects must fit into one of the categories: communications, database, desktop

environment, education, games/entertainment, internet, multimedia, office/business, other/nonlisted topic, printing, religion, scientific/engineering, security, software development, system, terminals and text editors

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ObjectWebwww.objectweb.org

Result of the project middleware component reused by several software platforms and

application domains Project must participate in the discussions of

the evolution of the ObjectWeb code base

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ObjectWebwww.objectweb.org

Project Registration: Complex DetailedDetailed information is required (much like a formal

project submission) LGLP license is recommended

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ObjectWeb – Advantages

CVS Web page Forum Mailing list Task management Backup Trackers

bugs support requests patches feature requests

Help from external developers

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Example of hosted project

http://forge.objectweb.org/projects/activexml/

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Savannahhttp://savannah.gnu.org

Projects must fall into one of four categories: software project documentation project free educational book FSF/GNU Project

Non-GNU Projects are hosted at http://savannah.nongnu.org Functionalities of both portals are the same

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Savannahhttp://savannah.gnu.org

Registration process: Requires detailed description of the project

URL of the source code (if any) List of libraries used in the source code

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Savannah – Advantages

CVS Web page Mailing list Bug tracking Support requests management Task management Help from external users

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Example of hosted project

http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/acml/

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Código Livrehttp://codigolivre.org.br

Brazilian portal Goal is to support the development of Free

Software in Brazil Created by UNIVATES and currently supported by

UNICAMP

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Código Livrehttp://codigolivre.org.br

Project Registration detailed descriptiondescription of the project and its goals the category in which it falls (desktop environment,

databases, communication, software development, text editor, education, printing, internet, games/entertainment, multimedia, office/business, other/non-listed, religion, scientific/engineering, security, system, terminal)

The list of categories is the same as the one in ObjectWeb They both use a software provided by SourceForge

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Código Livre – Advantages

CVS Mailing lists Bug tracking Forums Task management Web page Backup Documentation

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Example of hosted project

http://codigolivre.org.br/projects/postgresqlbr/

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Java.netwww.java.net

Portal that hosts Java projects Projects with no source code are accepted

under an IncubatorIncubator Project Projects are graduated when they release source

code

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Java.netwww.java.net

Project Registration: Inform the project goals and description Contact information Choose a community (Embedded Java, Global Education

and Learning Community, Java Communications, Java Distributed Data Acquisition and Control, Java Enterprise, Java Games, Java Patterns, Java Specification Requests, Java Tools, Java User Groups, Java Web Services and XML, Java Desktop, JXTA, Linux, Mac Java Community and Portlet)

Topics related to the project Category

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Java.net – Advantages

CVS File sharing Discussion forums Issue tracking Mailing lists News postings Event postings Weblog Wiki Help from external users

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Example of hosted project

https://wiseman.dev.java.net/

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Outline

Motivation Methodology Web Portals Comparison and ConclusionComparison and Conclusion

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Comparison

Source Forge

Apache TigrisObjectWeb

SavannahCódigo Livre

Java.net

Version Control

V V V V V V V

Remove CVS from public view

V V ? ? ? V ?

Forum V V V V V

Mailing Lists

V V V V V V V

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Comparison

Source Forge

Apache TigrisObjectWeb

Savannah

Código Livre

Java.net

Web Page

V V V V V V V

Bug Tracking

V V V V V V V

Docu-mentation V V V V

Intellec-tual Property

owner

Apache

Founda-tion

owner owner owner owner owner

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Comparison

Source Forge

Apache TigrisObjectWeb

SavannahCódigo Livre

Java.net

Support after termina-tion

V ? V ? V ?

Task Manage-ment

V V V V V V V

Backup V ? ? V V

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Comparison

Source Forge

Apache TigrisObjectWeb

SavannahCódigo Livre

Java.net

Restric-tions regarding the project

Catego-ries

Find a sponsor

Collab. sw

devel-op-

ment tool

Formal submis-

sion process,

LGPL

CategoriesCatego-

ries

Java proj-ect,

Cate-gories

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Conclusion

Portals that offer the major number of advantagesadvantages: Source Forge Código Livre Object Web

Código Livre: is in Portuguese (only locallocal visibility)

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Conclusion

This study has shown the large amount of options for project hosting The pros and cons of each portal

We hope it will help developers in the choice of a portal for their projects

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Conclusion

This study is part of a Free Software development project: PARGRESPARGRES

Financed by FINEP/Itautec More details tomorrow (Technical Session at 11hs)

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PARGRES

PARGRES: uma camada de processamento paralelo de consultas sobre o PostgreSQL Autores: Marta Mattoso, Geraldo Zimbrão, Alexandre A.

B. Lima, Fernanda Baião, Vanessa P. Braganholo, Albino A. Aveleda, Bernardo Miranda, Bruno Kinder Almentero, Marcelo Nunes Costa

A comparison of Free Software Web Portals

Vanessa P. BraganholoMarta Mattoso

{vanessa,marta}@cos.ufrj.br