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So what was the benefit again?

Trac is what we use for network, backup and project-documentation. And bugtracking. And for browsing through our projects' code. "It just works (tm)".

Yeah, Sourforge sucks.

Not only it's full of flaws, but the interface is awful.
Trac is the way to go.
We need more large-scale sites offering Trac hosting.

The game I'm currently working on, QonkD, is hosted at a site that uses Trac, and I'm very happy with it.
(Note that they accept only projects in the D programming language, and their site is a bit slow, probably cause it's small and lack resources.)

Um...and just WHY would anyone be interested in downloading any of this non-free garbage? Especially Sourceforge. That was one shameful decision. One shouldn't even consider using it over free projects like Savane, GForge, or as someone already mentioned, Trac.

This is Slashdot, after all, did we forget?

Okay, sorry, Last.fm is kind of free, but still they need to restore the ability to play an mp3 stream with the player of your choice, not just their clunky custom software.

bleargh!

trac is much better. way cleaner and simpler interface, and _excelent_ integration with subversion.
also, it's free.

http://trac.edgewall.com/

I second all the Subversion recommendations, and add to that the web-based Trac frontend. Trac incorporates a web-based interface to your SVN repository, along with authentication & access levels, wiki, and several project-management features (timeline tracking, milestone tracking, ticket system, etc.) Nice interface to SVN, though you should still install Tortoise on everyone's desktop for additional client functionality. Here's an interesting writeup on one sysadmin's use of SVN, Trac, and RapidSVN client.

In summary, it has the following features:

• Wiki for documentation/specifications/knowledge base. The wiki is extremely easy to use, but there is a bit of labour involved in importing a whole stack of word documents;
• Subversion interface. You can directly access your subversion repository (This implies that you will be using subversion for your source control). Subversion is a very good alternative to CVS;
• Bug tracking/ticketing feature. You can easily assign tickets to the developers to work on the various bugs/feature requests, including prioritising them. There is a mechanism for emailing the assigned developer, but I haven't set it up in my system yet (my system is only a week and a half old).

I run it all under an ubuntu server, which I have setup here as a skunkworks project since IT wouldn't setuyp anything like this for us (they would make us use VSS). I have it dumping the subversion repository and trac database to the windows server every night so it all gets backed up to tape in case of disaster - that's a simple one-line script for each in the cron.daily folder.

It all can be easily setup using the instructions at the ubuntu wiki.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned DOORS (It's by TeleLogic). It's a requirements matrix system that's extensible, powerful, and reasonably cheap if you're a mid-size (or larger) business. ..on a side note there's a modified Wiki by a Edgewall called Trac. I've not used it personally but it looks like the right stuff...

Since trace is just a frontend to a subversion repository, and tortoisesvn is a frontend to subversion (client) itself, using all 3 is perfectly acceptable - i do it all the time (for my windows development, anyways).

But I do agree, Trac is a great tool. Combination of wiki + ticket tracker + roadmap + svn browser. It's great because it's all integrated: you can make wiki posts that say "this will be done in milestone:1.2", tickets that say "Fixed in [265]" (revision), or svn commit messages saying "Fixed ticket #23" and everything becomes a link (see: http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/wiki/WikiFormatt ing#TracLinks). The wiki is great for documentation, researching new ideas, etc and ties in very nicely.

The wiki may or may not be an answer to the submitter's question (for the analysts), depending on how closely related the documents are to the code, and if they can get the analysts to switch from word to wiki syntax.. but it's definately worth checking out. So far everyone I've introduced trac to loves it.

Trac is a powerful ticketing system that integrates well with Subversion, and is built around an easy to use Wiki. I would also recommend using TortoiseSVN as a Windows client for both developers and non-developers.

While I haven't managed to get them integrated into the workflow yet (working on it), I find tools such as Trac extremely interresting and full of potential: Trac integrates a wiki (for base documentation) with a bugtracker (bugzilla-like) and a Subversion repository while linking all of them together (you can use the SVN commit comments to link a commit to a bug, track them from the wiki, generate timelines, ...)

And important document should never ever be stored in proprietary binary formats: you can't decrypt them yourself, can't change bugs, can't do anything.

It's a great article because it puts out some more reasons why wikis are the way of the future and docs and shared drives aren't. Before I was acting of intution and now at least it's possible to point to someone else who agrees.

Did you even look at other Wikis before going with MediaWiki?

No, actually I didn't. All of the features which I thought were important then were built into MediaWiki.
And the fact it is relatively easy to install and support was appealling when I couldm't devote alot of time to understanding the whole The Wiki Way.
I just wanted something that worked fast and well.

If I redid it, I'd probably push my company to use confluence. it's more along the lines of a professional collaberation tool without the overhead and expense. I'd also look at Trac if I had any say over the SCM or bugtracking systems my company uses.

Cheers,
Ben

That's why I use Trac as my bug tracker. It's a bit like a wiki, it works without any kind of account. Unfortunately spammers noticed that too, I have to see what I can do about that. :-(

And let's not even speak about versioning. 20 year old CVS beats it with one arm tied behind its back.

Yep, I already use Subversion with OpenDocument files and it's much better than OpenOffice.org's built-in versioning, and undoubtedly much better than Word's equivalent. Now, having an OpenDocument text diff display support in Trac would kill Word dead =)

Speaking of which, has anyone written external diffing tools for OpenDocument files?

For a low amount of developers and a small project just chatting on IRC and email may be enough.

If the project size rises you'll need some good design, so a wiki is in order ... or being able to meet in person - to write those design docs. Still an RCS and irc/email should be enoguh for avoiding conflicts since you'll want to design modular anyway.

But when you start getting more and more devs and the project
get's larger you should definetly try out http://www.edgewall.com/trac/ -- its a online project manager, where you create tickets for open tasks, and let devs choose these open tickets for closure.

Role
I work 60-70% of my time as a member of the core consulting team here and the rest of the time on "IT" administration and management around the local office. I should note though that I am a software engineer first and fore most, but it so happens that in small businesses one must wear many hats. Last year I was also heavily involved in accounting activities and managed a marketing program.

Scale
I only have 30 workstations and 27 servers (only 2 are publicly accessible and 8 are in a RCF) to worry about presently:

Culture
It should be noted that my users are technically very competent, which is a totally different can of worms to you (I assume from your comments), but there are plenty of issues to guard against with too competent a user as well!:) The issues are just different.

Environment
Server OS: RHEL 3
Workstation OS: Fedora Core 4 and 2 MacOS X (those damn graphic designers/marketing folk!:)
VPN Server OS: NetBSD 3 (runs on an Alpha box)

Software Tools
SCM: Subversion http://subversion.tigris.org/
Issue Tracking: Trac, which integrates nicely with Subversion http://edgewall.com/trac/
Internal Documentation (for future growth): Trac's built-in wiki http://edgewall.com/trac/
Web Server: Apache, mod_python, mod_ssl, mod_dav, and all that good stuff http://apache.org/
Knowledge Base: OpenCyc (but looking for something better that is still open source)
Intranet Framework: Python 2.4/TurboGears/Apache/mod_python http://python.org/ and http://turbogears.org/
Authentication: Fedora Directory Server (LDAP)
Updates: Yum, up2date
Server Monitoring: Nagios http://www.nagios.org/
[Internal] Remote Access: ssh and Gnome/VNC for the rare visual task
[External] Remote Access (i.e. VPN): OpenVPN

Internal Tools
Fixed Asset Management: Rolled my own TurboGears Web/AJAX application that hooks into our accounting system (it took 3 days part-time).
Backups: Rolled own Python backup mechanisms including scripts
Deployment Tools: Using Python's autoinst http://autoinst.tigris.org/
Continous Integration: I have started using Bitten instead of using cron and shell scripts to launch Python distribution builds and tests on a nightly and "continuous" basis for immediate feedback - something I find invaluable.

Office Software
As mentioned in a previous posting using a good calendaring tool is a very good idea. My recommendation is the Calendar extension for the Mozilla suite of tools.

Role
I work 60-70% of my time as a member of the core consulting team here and the rest of the time on "IT" administration and management around the local office. I should note though that I am a software engineer first and fore most, but it so happens that in small businesses one must wear many hats. Last year I was also heavily involved in accounting activities and managed a marketing program.

Scale
I only have 30 workstations and 27 servers (only 2 are publicly accessible and 8 are in a RCF) to worry about presently:

Culture
It should be noted that my users are technically very competent, which is a totally different can of worms to you (I assume from your comments), but there are plenty of issues to guard against with too competent a user as well!:) The issues are just different.

Environment
Server OS: RHEL 3
Workstation OS: Fedora Core 4 and 2 MacOS X (those damn graphic designers/marketing folk!:)
VPN Server OS: NetBSD 3 (runs on an Alpha box)

Software Tools
SCM: Subversion http://subversion.tigris.org/
Issue Tracking: Trac, which integrates nicely with Subversion http://edgewall.com/trac/
Internal Documentation (for future growth): Trac's built-in wiki http://edgewall.com/trac/
Web Server: Apache, mod_python, mod_ssl, mod_dav, and all that good stuff http://apache.org/
Knowledge Base: OpenCyc (but looking for something better that is still open source)
Intranet Framework: Python 2.4/TurboGears/Apache/mod_python http://python.org/ and http://turbogears.org/
Authentication: Fedora Directory Server (LDAP)
Updates: Yum, up2date
Server Monitoring: Nagios http://www.nagios.org/
[Internal] Remote Access: ssh and Gnome/VNC for the rare visual task
[External] Remote Access (i.e. VPN): OpenVPN

Internal Tools
Fixed Asset Management: Rolled my own TurboGears Web/AJAX application that hooks into our accounting system (it took 3 days part-time).
Backups: Rolled own Python backup mechanisms including scripts
Deployment Tools: Using Python's autoinst http://autoinst.tigris.org/
Continous Integration: I have started using Bitten instead of using cron and shell scripts to launch Python distribution builds and tests on a nightly and "continuous" basis for immediate feedback - something I find invaluable.

Office Software
As mentioned in a previous posting using a good calendaring tool is a very good idea. My recommendation is the Calendar extension for the Mozilla suite of tools.

I think that Trac would provide you with all that you need. It combines the features of a wiki with an issues tracker. From their page:

"Trac allows wiki markup in issue descriptions and commit messages, creating links and seamless references between bugs, tasks, changesets, files and wiki pages. A timeline shows all project events in order, making getting an overview of the project and tracking progress very easy."

I've been using Trac for almost a year now, and it works great. It's simple to set up and use, and has handy features such as a built-in wiki, RSS feeds and an interface to a Subversion repository.

The Trac site is at http://www.edgewall.com/trac.

Trac is a web-based software project management and bug/issue tracking system. It provides an interface to Subversion and an integrated wiki. It uses Apache and mod_python, but it's really easy to install if you follow the instructions.

You can see examples of it in use at PylonsHQ and the Django site, both of which are styled nicely. You can see a default install at PyDelicious.

And no, it's not only Python sites that use it. Those are just the ones off the top of my head. :)

we use trac with Subversion and generate documentation automatically with JavaDoc and phpDoc.

http://www.edgewall.com/trac/

From the "What is Trac" page:
        * An integrated system for managing software projects
        * An enhanced wiki
        * A flexible web-based issue tracker
        * An interface to the Subversion revision control system

Seems like that would work well for your purposes. I'm not sure if it does syntax highlighting, but it wouldn't be too hard to add that functionality.

Use SVN and then use TRAC.

IT's a wiki!

It's a source browser (with color highlighting)

It's a ticket tracking system (can import bugzilla, or be turned off)

It's a floor wax!

It's a dessert topping

(well, not the last two).

But it's pretty awesome, INSANELY easy to set up, and pretty slick/easy to use.

Sounds like a job for Trac. http://www.edgewall.com/trac . Subversion + wiki + bug tracking.

Trac: "Trac is an enhanced wiki and issue tracking system for software development projects."

I would definitely suggest SVN coupled with Trac (http://www.edgewall.com/trac/). There is nothing better. :)

Forget about CVS, because you will not want it, if you can use subversion - use subversion with trac. It gives you a wiki to store ideas and concepts, a bugtracking system and a webfrontend for subversion and some more.
http://www.edgewall.com/trac/

I run a small web dev firm that does a lot in the way of PHP and JS, like yourself. What we have found works the best for our core library is a copy of Subversion running on our server. This way we all know exactly what the latest version is, and more importantly we can see how it became the latest version (i.e. what changes were made). A lot of tools run with SVN nicely. For instance, Trac talks to a backend copy of SVN and couples it loosely with a wiki and a couple of other things. A lot of hosting providers will also run a copy of SVN for you, like http://networkredux.com/ (We just switched over to them).

Of course, a root level folder on the ftp server can also work.

I haven't spent a lot of time using it (since my project is just me a friend) but the Subversion + Trac looks pretty neat. Was pretty easy to setup and configure on Ubuntu.

"Trac is an enhanced wiki and issue tracking system for software development projects.

Trac uses a minimalistic approach to web-based software project management. Our mission; to help developers write great software while staying out of the way. Trac should impose as little as possible on a team's established development process and policies.

All aspects of Trac have been designed with one single goal, to simplify tracking and communication of software issues, enhancements and monitoring overall progress."

http://www.edgewall.com/trac/

It is no longer limited to subversion actually - there are already plugins for mercurial, perforce and more (see http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/wiki/VersioningS ystemBackend).

Some other open-source projects that use Trac include adium, catalyst, ruby on rails and madwifi - see http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/wiki/TracUsers for more.

It is no longer limited to subversion actually - there are already plugins for mercurial, perforce and more (see http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/wiki/VersioningS ystemBackend).

Some other open-source projects that use Trac include adium, catalyst, ruby on rails and madwifi - see http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/wiki/TracUsers for more.

This is pretty much exactly what track does:

http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/

I would also toss out the observation that it seems to 'fall over' more often than would be considered 'ideal'. I can't really back it up with much, but projects using track seem to have more 'wiki down' mailing list posts. Perhaps it is because people actually use it, who knows.

See Trac ("an enhanced wiki and issue tracking system for software development projects"), which integrates both a wiki and a ticket system (among other things such as version control) together. This means you can use wiki markup in tickets and commit logs, and link from wiki pages to tickets etc and vice versa. Nice :-)

The Trac project is rather nice, a wiki with svn and bug-tracking integration, for use in collaborate project management.

Our team uses Subversion in conjunction with http://www.edgewall.com/trac/ and I think it works great! It can be a little tricky to get setup the first time (at least on a mac) but it's well worth it.

While we're adding stories of old systems, here's mine. My first motherboard and CPU when I left home was a K6-2 266MHz (with the 66MHz bus). For a while it served as the family server and I've recently resurrected it as a file server. It has a RAID 1 mirror using two oldish hard drives (80G+60G), 192M of ram, a 100Base-T network card, and runs Debian GNU/Linux. It serves my home directory from the RAID-1 volume via NFS (after a few drive crashes over the years, I want my data safe), a Cyrus IMAP store for my email, and I've recently setup Subversion and Trac on it to store my little software projects. The system has pretty light load almost all the time, has long uptimes, and runs pretty well overall. In fact, it runs better than the family server using a 3Ware RAID card and 4x 120G drives setup in a RAID 5 volume, with a slightly faster processor (K6-III 400MHz). Copying a lot of data over the network sends its system load pretty high. I think I'll avoid RAID-5 in the future for performance reasons, opting for RAID 1 or RAID 1+0 instead.

It is certainly very usable for a situation where you have a common goal and a few people working on sub-tasks that are required for that goal. Bugzilla will let you track what is dependant on what and let you easily communicate with each other.

It's not as suitable for actually collaborating on content - that would work better with some Wiki software.

It also doesn't really have anything that deals with timeframes and timelines.

I've heard good things about http://www.edgewall.com/trac/.

If you're looking to do it well, I'd recommend :

Subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org/
Trac (http://trac.edgewall.com/

The combination of those will give you :

- Bug tracking (let the customer have access etc, and they'll feel good ;))
- Source code viewing
- Timeline (commits, what changed when etc)
- Integration between bugs (tickets) and source code via the Timeline
- Milestones
- Wiki for documentation, design notes etc.

They happen to be using Trac as a web-based wiki/issue tracker/project management tool, and they're using an old version.

Trac's development trunk has fixed some of these locking issues with SQLite as well as allowed for using Postgres as a backend. I'm still not sure if it would survive a slashdotting, but it would be better performance than this.

I don't think their dev server is any indication of the level of service...

Hehe. No apologies needed.

I've also heard great things about the subversion integration with eclipse, in addition to CVS, and I'm about to check that out as I'm starting a new project and planning to use trac (http://www.edgewall.com./ Bust whatever you do, DO NOT use VSS, even for tightly coupled, single platform MS projects, no matter how much you like the interface and integration. That thing will eat your projects and spit them out. No one in Microsoft even uses that abomination. Your better off with RCS.

It may be overkill, but at work I use "Trac" ( http://www.edgewall.com/trac/ ) tied to my personal SVN sandbox. You should have something similar for any big project anyway. Then I have different categories like "SysAdmin work" etc.

A single GTD might be enough to manage all the projects, using Tiddlers for notes and such. It's a single file that can be carried around on a stick, and needs a browser to be edited, so it might be simpler to set up than a more complex server-side tool like Trac (which you might look into, although I don't know how good it is for non-software projects).

Biggest drawback of GTD TiddlyWiki seems to be the lack of timelines. These might be implementable via macros if/when GTD will use the most recent version of Jeremy's TiddlyWiki.

I can recommend Edgewall's trac for a svn server/wiki/project manager. It is F/OSS and very flexible in my experience. I am using it for a development community similar to the idea of sourceforge but much smaller and dedicated to extensions/distros/etc of a single OSS project. I am also using it for my own projects and I can highly recommend it.

We've been using Trac for this. Good stuff, assuming you manage your code in Subversion.

While it's really meant to be a frontend to a subversion repository, Trac may just do all the things you want. It is a combined Wiki and request tracker (and subversion repository viewer). The nice part is you can use wiki markup everywhere. I use the wiki part to document random things about the IT infrastructure (like, how the backups are performed, where certain files are stored, what all the star-codes for the phone system are, etc). You can also write a page saying "this was added while fixing bug #23" and it will make a link to that ticket.

It also has milestones, which can be handy. You can assign tickets to a milestone, and it will give you a visual progress bar of how many open vs closed tickets you have for that milestone. It's good for tracking the progress on subtasks within projects (just file a ticket for everything you need to do -- you get an itemized todo list with priorities that you can add notes/ideas to as you work through it, and can always link back to wiki documents).

Of course, if you absolutely hate Wiki's, you probably won't like it. I'm so-so on wikis in general, but Trac is an incredibly useful tool.

Trac provides a nice web based diff tool and a bunch of other features.

I understand that Trac support for multiple projects (along with a few other features) is due soon - I believe as part of the upcoming 0.9 release.

Thanks for the pointers re: Scarab and GForge though, I'll have a look at them. Always nice to keep up-to-date with the alternatives. :)

Eh, it happens, don't worry about it :).

Good to see another Trac fan helping spread the word. Damn I love that software.

Quite seriously, it would be interesting to see a really major opensource project like KDE switch to Trac - though using Subversion is a necessary first step, so we'll have to wait and see if a few more old-school opensource projects (eg. GCC, OpenOffice, Mozilla, perhaps one of the BSDs) start making the transition from CVS to Subversion.

Great!

Now when are they going to be switching from Bugzilla to Trac?

(insert ha-ha-only-serious-cos-Bugzilla-scares-me smiley here)