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A comparison of Free Software Web Portals. Vanessa P. Braganholo Marta Mattoso {vanessa,marta}@cos.ufrj.br. Outline. Motivation Methodology Web Portals Comparison and Conclusion. Outline. Motivation Methodology Web Portals Comparison and Conclusion. Motivation. Free Software - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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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