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Advanced Open Source Project Hosting?

Posted by Cliff on from the when-you-outgrow-the-typical-answers dept.

asn0 asks: "How do large/popular Open Source/Free Software projects manage their needs for hosting, bandwidth and mirrors? What limitations are there to the size/popularity of projects a site like SourceForge can/will support? Where does a project go for hosting and bandwidth once it out-grows SourceForge, and how hard is it to get hosting, bandwidth and mirrors to support a growing open source project?"

3 of 17 comments (clear)

  1. Sponsorship by jonsb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have a small web based application I develop, I put out a few applications for hosting in return for advertising on. I got a yes on over 50% of my replies -which is way more than I expected!! I definitely didn't expect to have to make a decision between them all. Many hosting companies I know are willing to do this providing they can support the size of the project. Look at php.net as an example for a very large scale project.

  2. You don't outgrow SourceForge. by jgardn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You don't outgrow SourceForge. Look at some of the projects hosted there - ViM, Python, several Kernel patches, and much more. Some of the projects there are open-source behemoths, with millions of users.

    SourceForge wants to host the big projects. They want millions of people to view the advertisement banners, and they want to get plugged by the best projects out there. You can imagine what they could do to boost sales if they could say, "You know that ultra-popular huge open source project X? We host it. We can host your software as well."

    And if you are worried about bandwidth -- that's not even a concern. With mirrors being added a couple a year, bandwidth isn't a concern, and it never will be.

    --
    The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
  3. Yes, Virginia, you can outgrow sourceforge. by Phronesis · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Sourceforge has some serious problems with respect to managing CVS archives. Most important is the dangling lock problem. If a transaction aborts and leaves a dangling lock file, nobody, not even the project admin, can even get read access to cvs until someone emails a sourceforge admin and gets them to go delete the lock file.

    This kind of thing might be fine for small projects, but I don't think it's acceptable for a large project.

    Also, when I take off my developer hat and put on my consumer hat, when I try to search for projects using Sourceforge's search page, the search engine is disabled over 90% of the time. I would not call that industrial strength.