Friday | 22 August, 2008
Computerworld
SourceForge exec on the open source breeding ground
With more staff, improvements to its website, new infrastructure and an increased enterprise take-up of open source, it’s full steam ahead.

Mike Rudolph, Vice President, SourceForge and SourceForge.net Marketplace.
Mike Rudolph, Vice President, SourceForge and SourceForge.net Marketplace.
Computerworld Buyer's Guide - Vendors Matched to this Article
Related Features
  • +

    Ticked Off at Tick the Box Mentality 04/02/2008 13:01:15

    Does your executive search firm know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients?
    Does your executive search firm know its MIS managers from its elbow? Does it even know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients?
  • +

    Strategies for Dealing With IT Complexity 24/12/2007 10:30:47

    Every innovation, every business process improvement, comes with an IT complexity tax that must be paid by CIOs in time, money and sweat. Here are strategies to mitigate the increasing complexity of IT as it enables new business.
    Every innovation, every business process improvement, comes with an IT complexity tax that must be paid by CIOs in time, money and sweat. Here are strategies to mitigate the increasing complexity of IT as it enables new business.
  • +

    9 Paths to Higher Performance 10/12/2007 14:09:23

    When an organization brings together talented people in a creative, collaborative environment it fosters a culture of high performance, which in turn leads to superior business results
    Like high-achieving individuals, some organizations seem to have the Midas touch. Virtually every initiative they touch earns them gold and even those that fail never seem to cost them much of anything at all
  • +

    How to Get Real About Strategic Planning 04/02/2008 12:50:59

    Everyone agrees that having a strategic plan for IT is a good thing but most CIOs approach the process with fear and loathing. In fact, the majority of CIOs (and the enterprises they work for) are faking it when it comes to strategic planning. Isn't it time we all got real?
    Oh, it must be nice to be the CIO of a FedEx or a GE or a Credit Suisse. Places where IT and the business are so tightly aligned you can barely tell the two apart. Where corporate leaders understand that IT is a strategic asset and support it as such
Additional Resources
Executive Guides
Whitepapers
Zones
Zone logoZones provide focussed content from Computerworld and leading technology partners.

Newsletter Subscription

Sign up for our Computerworld newsletters!
Computerworld's twice-daily news service keeps you in touch with the latest, most important headlines from Australia and around the world.
Keep up with the latest virtualisation technologies, products, news and features.
RSS Feeds

We hear from SourceForge and SourceForge.net Marketplace Vice President Mike Rudolph about the world's largest Open Source software development web site, which, as of today, claims 162,855 registered projects and 1,732,552 registered users.

In Feb last year, SourceForge (then VA Software), which owns SourceForge.net, reported its first profitable quarter. Do you expect it is all up from here?

Our network of web sites serves an average of 32 million unique visitors per month. Our full 2007 fiscal year was strong. We achieved our second consecutive year of profitability, putting up 35 percent revenue growth year over year. We're quite pleased with these results.

How many new projects, on average, are added to SourceForge.net a day?

Approximately 75 - 100 per day.

SourceForge.net competes with RubyForge, Tigris.org, BountySource, BerliOS, JavaForge and GNU Savannah. How does it differentiate itself from these other services?

It's not that we all compete, the reality is: each of these sites are there to help developers. Some of these that you mention are focused on narrow corners of the market. We're different in that we tend to be the custodian of open source development. We're the largest. We've been around the longest. It's a proven and trusted development platform.

We're very broad plus quite international, with reach into almost every country on the planet. US-based projects only account for fewer than 20 percent of the projects on the site. We think this is a real strength as international participation is a fundamental strength of OSS. SourceForge.net reflects that.

SourceForge's Ross Turk said that the site's staff was 'beefed up from about 5 to 30 early last year. How many staff does it now employ?

About 100 employees.

After Feb 2006, SourceForge replaced a lot of its infrastructure. What changes were made?

We're always working on making the site better. Due to security concerns, I don't really want to comment on too many specifics about our infrastructure. We've been doing a lot of work modernizing our CVS - Subversion - and our main web site components, in addition to major updates to our central database infrastructure. This is to insure a fast, scalable environment for SourceForge.net projects.

What are the storage and bandwidth requirements for keeping SourceForge running?

Obviously we've got some very hefty storage and bandwidth requirements. During the month of September this year, we served almost 63 million files for a total of over 647 terabytes through our worldwide mirror network. When new mirrors petition to be included in our rotation, we require a minimum of 3TB of storage and 100Mbps of dedicated bandwidth.

What has been the most significant recent improvement to the site?

SourceForge.net has really seen regular improvement over the past several years, and this year was particularly active. There have been quite a few new features added including: code search, wikis, a community hub, improved navigation and, of course, the soon-to-be-announced SourceForge.net Marketplace.

What differences has it made?

I believe that it's a consensus within the community that SourceForge.net is bigger, faster, and just plain better than ever.

Computerworld Buyer's Guide - Vendors Matched to this Article
Market Place

Computerworld Member Login


 

Prioritizing Services with IT Service Management (ITSM)

Computerworld Live Webinar
Wednesday 20th, August 2008
11:00am EST (Sydney, Australia)

To be repeated on:

Thursday 4th, September 2008
11:00am EST (Sydney Australia)

Sign up and receive a free copy of The Forrester WaveTM Service Desk Management Tools, Q2 2008 at the conclusion of the Webinar.

Attend and discover:

  • How to deliver value to your business through ITSM
  • Best practice ITSM implementation
  • Why emphasis is changing from optimizing IT management processes to better servicing customers and demonstrating real dollar value
  • If service-oriented ITSM is best for your business
Whitepaper

Market Trends: Multienterprise/B2B Infrastructure Market | Worldwide | 2008

Garner says global 2000 companies will double their multi-enterprise traffic in the next 5 years. Discover the key technology and business drivers that will enable this.

Enterprise IT Buyer's Guide
Find Technology Vendors Fast
 
Find vendors by name | Find by category
Sponsored Links