Sourceforge.net

SourceForge.net
URL	http://sourceforge.net/
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	collaborative revision control and software development management system
Registration	optional
Available language(s)	English
Owner	SourceForge, Inc. (Formerly VA Software)
Created by	VA Software
Launched	November 1999
Current status	Active

SourceForge.net is a source code repository and acts as a centralized location for software developers to control and manage open source software development. SourceForge.net is operated by Sourceforge, Inc. (formerly VA Software) and runs a version of the SourceForge software, forked from the last open-source version available. A large number of open source projects are hosted on the site (it had reached 169,281 projects and 1,789,014 registered users[1] as of 2008, although it does contain many dormant or single-user projects.

SourceForge.net has offered free access to hosting and tools for developers of free software / open source software for several years, and has become well-known within such development communities for these services.

SourceForge.net competes with other providers such as RubyForge, Tigris.org, BountySource, BerliOS, JavaForge and GNU Savannah.

Offerings

SourceForge.net allows any project uniquely named in its registry to be sub-domained as http://project-name.sourceforge.net or http://project-name.sf.net. This gives some prominent URL branding to a project and a high activity in it can get the project listed on the main page http://sourceforge.net as a Top Project. Having a high number of registered members numbering over a million, and often been researched for project information, any participating project can gain fast access to the market of developers and users for a short and efficient adoption rate.

SourceForge.net provides ample storage space for a project to completely house their contents such as a wiki, MySQL database, source code versions managed with CVS or Subversion, and even their own website pages at the subdomain location.

By uploading code to SourceForge.net, you grant SourceForge a perpetual proprietary license, in effect handing over the copyright to SourceForge.Terms and Conditions of Use. SourceForge.net. SourceForge, Inc. (2000-08-15). Retrieved on 2008-02-22. “By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through SourceForge.net, you grant Company a worldwide, non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, fully sublicensable, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, create derivative works from, publish, perform, display, rent, resell and distribute such Content (in whole or part) on SourceForge.net and incorporate Content in other works, in any form, media, or technology developed by Company, though Company is not required to incorporate Feedback into any Company products or services. Company reserves the right to syndicate Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through SourceForge.net and use that Content in connection with any service offered by Company.”

Temporary ban in mainland China

Main article: Golden Shield Project

The entire SourceForge.net website was banned in mainland China around 2002,China says asta la vista to Altavista. vnunet.com (2002-09-06). Retrieved on 2007-12-04. though the ban was later lifted in 2003^{[citation needed]}.

Banned countries

In their Terms of Use, sourceforge states that its services are not available to the users residing in United States Office of Foreign Assets Control sanction list. As of January 2008, people from those countries can browse SourceForge projects and download from them, but access to the secure server (https://sourceforge.net) is not allowed. This means, people coming from those IPs can\'t login to sourceforge or contribute to the source codes.

See also

• Comparison of free software hosting facilities

References

External links

• SourceForge.net
• "The SourceForge Story", by James Maguire (2007-10-17)

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia