Google announced today at OSCON, the O’Reilly open source conference, that it has launched an open source project hosting site that will rival SourceForge.net. The service has been given the unglamorous name Google Code Project Hosting.
Early comments around the web highlight the need for a competitor to SourceForge.net, which is believed to experience too much down time and emphasize enterprise users at the expense of others. SourceForge.net runs on the propriety SourceForge software and is owned by Fremont California’s VA Software.
Projects hosted by Google are organized by tag and includes an ajax feedback and issue tracking. They system is built on Subversion and Google’s Big Table file system. Projects can be up to 100mb in size. The reliability of Google’s uptime seems to be a primary selling point.
The interface is pared down and doesn’t include much of the information that you find when you look at a project on SourceForge. There’s an ajax issue tracking feature for user feedback. So far the whole thing looks far less user-friendly than SourceForge but if it’s targeting a technical audience exclusively that might be of less consequence.
Projects already available on the site include things like Webomedia, an ajax based framework that will help create online streaming of media, Simple File Manager, an easy to use web based alternative to FTP, and RepoMan, an encrypted Python P2P chat service. Humorously, the sample tag “stable” currently brings up no results.
Update: Several people have pointed to Jeff Lindsay’s DevjaVu as an alternative. It’s in private beta right now, but it’s a startup and we love startups.
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There’s a typo, SourcForge instead of SourceForge. 2nd paragraph from bottom.
Thx
What’s with google and these flat out bland, borring UIs? It not bad in Gmail and I like the simple Google homepage, but it doesn’t work for everything.
Also, looks like they marketing this to coders, rather than the general public. They are who download the most.
Just seems to me that googlel is paying less and less attention to User Interface (UI) nowadays.
What do you guys think?…
“The reliability of Google’s uptime seems to be a primary selling point.” — really? because in the 10 minutes that they announced it at OSCON with only about 200 people aware, the stability and uptime was a bunch of errors — and that was minimal people knowing about it.
I for one am finding Google Project Hosting hugely easier to use that Sourceforge. It has a nicely cut-down feature set and a very clear interface.
Not to be picky but there’s another type: it is Fremont, CA not Freemont, CA
Not to be picky, but there’s another typo: it is Fremont, CA not Freemont, CA
Rahgu, thank you for the correction.
Rahgu, thank you for the correction.
An easy to use web “baed” file manager?
Sorry made a typo there myself, “alternative to FTP” not “file-manager”.
That previous comment was written from memory ^_^.
Then there is SourceFourge.net and SourceForge.net in the second paragraph.
Whooey! Time to get some sleep or dink more coffee.
I for one like the simple interface. As mentioned before, it’s coders/developers who will be using this the most, and I’m guessing they want something that’s simple, straightforward and easy to use, not something with a flashy UI.
Sometimes simple is beautiful. Google was among the first of the big search engines to make their page simple, stripped-down and to the point, and I applaud them for remaining this way through the years.
it’s “drink” not “dink” Marshall
lol
hey you take your coffee your way, I’ll take it mine.
Bye bye SourceForge, fun knowin ya!
234234
I think it’s time google started using their brand power and creating better designs and coming up with better names for their products. This should be interesting to see how it will compete with sourceforge.
I ran around the site for an hour and I put a list of all the features at:
http://engtech.wordpress.com/2.....urceforge/
Engtech, that’s a great post. Thanks for the link.
I like the fact that Marshall wrote this article, it seems that Micheal is a little bit bitter towards Google at times.
starting late sometime helps.
a lot easiet to navigate.
Engtech, that’s a great post. Thanks for the link.
welcome, feel free to include it in the original article.
-cough- http://devjavu.com -cough-
I really like the simplicity of this service, and the powerful search.
SourceForegt better start improving their service, if they’re hoping to keep their users.
Funny, “user friendly” and “SourceForge” are words I wouldn’t think would go together.
I wonder why sourceforge is the only alternative mentioned in this context. Sure it’s big, but there are others of course. I prefer berlios.de.
http://developer.berlios.de/
Word, Europe!
I find this to be much simpler than all the **forges out there. They all try to provide various functionalities but for all of the features there are simpler and better solitions out there.
However one interesting feature. Google Code warned me when I was creating a project that there was already a project called “tubmler”…… on SourceForge.net!!! It seems that google checks if the name exists on other code hosting sites and warns that this might make confusion. A great little feature.
finally … sourceforge _SUCKS_ ….
It’s bloated,slow,ugly and the downtime is not acceptable.
wish we can have more choice about open source project hosting and wish sourceforge offer better service.
who doesn’t google just buy sourceforge????
sorry….why doesn’t google just buy sourceforge????
This looks to be more of a compliment to SourceForge than competition — for now. We host our enterprise scale project on SF.net and overall its a great service, considering its free. Definitely have complaints when the site has its downtimes and the forums leave a lot to be desired (we host our own at the company site, jitterbit.com).
Still, Google looks like it will help smaller more individual projects benefit, and SF will hopefully feel some heat about the potential competition down the line and improve some of their services.