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Google Announces Open Source Repository
NewsForge (also owned by OSTG) has word of Google's newest product: an open-source project repository. Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier sat down for a talk with Greg Stein and Chris DiBona, who say that the product is very similar to sites like SourceForge but is not intended to compete with them. From the article: "Instead, Stein says that the goal is to see what Google can do with the Google infrastructure, to provide an alternative for open source projects. DiBona says that it's a 'direct result of Greg concentrating on what open source projects need. Most bugtrackers are informed by what corporations' and large projects need, whereas Google's offering is just about what open source developers need. Stein says that Google's hosting has a 'brand new look' at issue tracking that may be of interest to open source projects, and says 'nobody else out there is doing anything close to it.'"
Whether or not they claim to be competing with SourceForge is really beside the point. SourceForge puts all its effort into providing service for its Enterprise customers. Or at least that's my interpretation of why their free services have been plagued with extensive downtime and poor administration. When I did the first release of a personal project last year I didn't even bother to put it on SourceForge. If they can't provide reasonable uptime and notification of changes (such as the infamous CVS root change) then it's worse than nothing.
If Google provides decent uptime--which seems likely given their infrastructure--then they'll already have SourceForge beat on the most important metric. If the service actually innovates and provides some unique value, well that's just a bonus.
...who say that the product is very similar to sites like SourceForge but is not intended to compete with them.
I guess they mean that in the sense that the Pittsburgh Steelers aren't intended to compete with an intramural squad playing in a park. Shall we start the SourceForge countdown clock?
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
"very similar to sites like SourceForge but is not intended to compete with them" ****Missing from the original post**** ", but is intended to replace them." Why compete when you can crush?
A quick look through the licenses mentioned in the TFA shows that public domain is missing.
Although its not a license per se, it might be nice to add that option for those projects that choose to go that route.
I was really hoping for something more exciting from google, when they announced that they'd be producing something for the open source community. Sourceforge has the occasional problem (CVS stats has been broken for how long now?), but basically it a fantastic site for open source, and easily provides all the services that any OSS project of any size needs in order to function and flourish.
:)). However, I just cannot see that they can bring any miraculous innovation to the table as far as hosting/supporting OSS projects goes - between forums, IRC and email, collaboration over OSS projects is already working perfectly and as I see it, that is all that google could help with - they can't really step in and do the actual development work required to create every Open source project out there.
I know google has done amazing things with stuff like webmail (gmail DESTROYS any previous webmail I have used in terms of features/functionality/speed/storage space, so much so that I haven't tried another since and doubt I ever will - if google decided to charge $10 a month for the gmail service I'd pay it in a heartbeat - it's that good
Still, I'm sure it will be all AJAXy and perdy, maybe faster than sf.net and maybe I'll even choose them over sf.net the next time I can be bothered starting an OSS project.
Will program for karma.
I, for one, welcome our new overl[b]oooooo[/b]rds.
...before I noticed what bullshit they slipped in.
I was looking around http://code.google.com/ when I took a look at the "Featured Projects". Pirate Island is a blatent advertisement for Dead Man's Chest, though it looks like a legit project until you go to the site. Google also did some bullshit like that with the Davinci Code too. I don't care if they want to advertise it. I have a big problem when they try to trick their users into thinking it's useful content.
Call me a cynic but I think this is just a way to get more ad revenue. Kudos for them and all, but their offering better be *far* better than Berlios, GNU Savannah and SF.net for people to sign up.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Whats next? An extension to Google News, where nobody reads the articles, but everybody stays for the discussion? I smell a pattern here ;-)
The FAQ for Google's hosting service is here:
http://code.google.com/hosting/faq.html
Right now it's sort of an 'eh' service. We've got Subversion, a simple issue tracker and a really primitive home for each project. It's no SourceForge but it is fast.
It will be interesting to see what direction they take it.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
People complain that this Google project does not offer the same amount of features/sections as Sourceforge and thus must be worse. How often is it not that half of the sections on Sourceforge are empty (Documents is a nice example)? Resulting in completely confused visitors... Then are those that say it doesn't offer a project page, while most people using sourceforge do not keep their project pages on sourceforge either. As I see it, this Google service offers exactly what I've been looking for recently: a quick and simple method to maintain my small projects online without any application/approval periods.
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
I've used sourcrforge for my project for the last four years. I have a small but constant stream of people downloading my project.
I have had numerous problems with services going offline, each time it's been annoying. recently I couldn't access the web page admin, so I haven't been able to update the site to reflect a new version of my software. As I've been working on the new release for a couple of months, this is a major issue for me.
Plus you now have to pay to get the very best service. I can't afford this, so I'm stuck with the less able service. They claim the normal free service is unnaffected, but I have my doubts. Even when everythings working it's not especially easy to use, and I don't much like some of the changes to the site they've added of late.
Their intentions may be good, and I do understand the need for funding, but non paying users are being effected, regardless of their intent. Paying users get better project admin options/tools too, and I'd rather like that. I'm a poor student though, such things are outside of my budget. I must say sourceforge has lost its appeal for me of late because of these things.
I think I may give google a try, and tramline the two for a while.
That's the open source way, the superior product survives based on how good it is.
"Google Code" sounds way too professional. Might I suggest:
Google Repository for Open-Source Software
Or perhaps Google Open-source Repository Project.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
/me turns off adblock now... ;)
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
We've been gathering input on the download system, well, pretty much since it was created. Personally, I find it painful, but there are a lot of reasons why it is the way it is today. That said, a replacement for the download system is currently in planning, and our primary aim is to allow consumers to get what they're looking for with fewer clicks. Our current phases tend to be about 90 days, and we plan to enter implementation in August.
-- May cause nausea, headaches, and interference with electronic devices.
We just finished listening to Greg's presentation at OSCON, and so far we're feeling pretty good about what this means for the Open Source community, and, by extension, SourceForge.net. Because, after all, what's good for the community is good for us. Greg talked a bit about how he expects that users will want to "mix and match" tools that are offered at Google Code, SourceForge.net, and other repositories. This resonates very well with us, and is consistent with our longer-term goals - flexibility is one of the cornerstones of our larger strategic direction. Developers should work using the tools they want to use. We've got a pretty good relationship with the folks over at Google, and I really believe they're launching this because they, like us, care about Open Source and want to see it continue to thrive. We've begun disucssions about integration between SF.net and Google Code - you'll notice that you can't register projects on Google Code with SF.net project names. I expect there will be a much more substantial integration as the community makes its needs known. Thanks, Ross Turk (joined by Jay Seirmarco) SourceForge.net Engineering Manager
-- May cause nausea, headaches, and interference with electronic devices.
Google is encouraging piracy!!! :-)
Of course, I happen to think that's a good thing, ye scurvey dogs, ye.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I wonder - if Microsoft was not such a big player, but rather there were several somewhat smaller players, like Microsoft, Apple, and IBM, would there be any large companies that invest in open source as IBM does now? I mean, it seems like one of the big reasons that IBM and Google invest in FOSS is because it is a good way to strike indirectly - and often directly - at Microsoft. If there was no "king of the hill," would we still see this level of investment?