Transcript On the updatability of XML views over relational databases

A comparison of Free
Software Web Portals
Vanessa P. Braganholo
Marta Mattoso
{vanessa,marta}@cos.ufrj.br
Outline
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Motivation
Methodology
Web Portals
Comparison and Conclusion
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Outline
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
Motivation
Methodology
Web Portals
Comparison and Conclusion
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Motivation
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Free Software
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Freedoms in the Free Software definition need to
be accomplished
Freedom of “studying and adapting the code
according to the user needs”
Source code needs to be publicly available
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Motivation
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Most users use Web Portals to make their
code widely available
Web portals
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Provide access to the source code
Offer tools to support the development of Free
Software
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Version Control Systems
Forums
Bug Tracking
Mailing Lists
…
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Motivation
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Several Web Portals available
Each of them offer different advantages (tools)
to the users
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How to choose among so many options?
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Main Goal
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Help users to make this decision
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We have studied 7 of the most used Web Portals
We present them and compare them, hoping this
will help users in choosing one of them
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Studied Portals
1) Source Forge
2) Apache
3) Tigris
4) ObjectWeb
5) Savannah
6) Código Livre (a Brazilian portal)
7) Java.net
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Outline
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Motivation
Methodology
Web Portals
Comparison and Conclusion
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Methodology
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Analyzed portals have public and private
areas
Most of the times, details on how the portals
work are in the private areas
Because of this…
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We have created a new user for each of the portals
We have followed all the steps to the creation of a
new project in each of the studied portals
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Methodology
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The creation of the project was not confirmed
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We have used “fake data”
Portals require projects to be approved before
being hosted (to avoid “fake projects”)
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We could not access the private area of the projects
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Methodology
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To overcome this limitation…
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We have looked at the public areas of the projects
hosted in each portal
This helped us to identify the available options,
and what could be hidden from external users
In some cases, this (plus analysis of
documentation) was not enough to answer
some of the questions we have raised in our
evaluation
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Open Source x Free Software
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Most of the portals we have studied are Open
Source portals
The goals of the Free Software and Open
Source community are quite similar
Open Source portals can host Free Software
as well
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Evaluation
1) Project registration: what are the
requirements for the registration of a new
project on the portal?
2) Version control: does the portal offer version
control systems?
3) Forum: does it offer forums?
4) Mailing lists: are mailing lists available?
5) Project Web Page: does the portal supply a
web page for the project?
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Evaluation
6) Bugs: does it offer bug tracking?
7) Documentation: does it have tools to support
the documentation of the project?
8) Intellectual Property: does the portal
preserve the intellectual property to the
projects owner?
9) Support: does it require the developers to
provide support even after the project is
finished?
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Evaluation
10) Task Management: does it have tools to
support task management?
11) Backup: does it provide automatic backups
of the repositories in the version control
system?
12) Customization of public area: does it allow
the developer to customize the public area
(remove unwanted items from the public
view)?
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Outline
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Motivation
Methodology
Web Portals
Comparison and Conclusion
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Common Features
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All of the portals require that the project be
approved before being hosted
Distribution license must be chosen at
project registration time
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Standard license such as GPL, LGPL, BSG, etc.
Customized (new) license – this may make the
project approval time to take longer
Exception: ObjectWeb recommends LGPL – other
licenses are allowed on very special cincunstances
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Common Features
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It is not necessary to have source code
available at project registration time
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The goal of the portals is to help the project
development (tools)
Only registered users can submit project
hosting requests
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Common Features
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Version Control Systems
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Can be used by developers
Read-only anonymous access to outside users
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Anonymous check-outs
Some of the portals provide ways of blocking such
external access
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Source Forge
www.sourceforge.net
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Hosts tens of thousands of projects
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Main goal: provide a centralized place where
developers can control and manage the
development of their projects
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Source Forge
www.sourceforge.net
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Project Registration
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Type of project (software, documentation, web site,
peer-to-peer software, game, content management
system, operational system distribution, precompiled package of existing software, software
internationalization )
Term agreement
Project description (short)
Choose project name
Project is approved or rejected in about 2 days
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Source Forge – Advantages
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Forums
CVS
Mailing lists (public or private)
Project web page
Documentation (DocManager)
Task management
Automatic backup of the version control
repository
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Source Forge – Advantages
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Trackers
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Bugs
Support Requests
Feature Requests
Patches
All of these tools can be configured to be
visible or hidden to external users
It is possible to request help from external
users
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Example of hosted projects
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http://sourceforge.net/projects/hsqldb/
Example where CVS is not public:
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http://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/
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Apache
www.apache.org
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Maintained by the Apache Software
Foundation
Loss of intellectual property: projects hosted
there must be donated to the Apache
Foundation
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The Foundation gets the responsibility of deciding
how the project should be developed
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Apache
www.apache.org
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Project Submission: through the “Apache
Incubator Project”
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Project stays incubated until it is mature enough to
become an official project of the Apache Foundation
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Apache - Advantages
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Version Control System (CVS or Subversion)
Mailing Lists (which can be exclusive for the
project or in conjunction with the Incubator
Project)
Web page
Documentation (Apache Forrest)
Bug tracking
Task Management.
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Example of incubated project
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http://incubator.apache.org/projects/wsrp4j.html
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Tigris
www.tigris.org
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It only hosts projects related to its mission:
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developing tools to support collaborative
development
Project Registration
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Project should fit into one of the categories:
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construction, deployment, design, issue track, libraries,
personal, process, profession, requirements, SCM,
students, techcomm and testing
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Tigris – Advantages
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Mailing Lists
Task Management
Bug tracking
Web page for the project
News
CVS or Subversion
Forums
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Example of hosted project
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http://argouml.tigris.org/
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ObjectWeb
www.objectweb.org
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Consortium created in 1999 to promote the
development of Open Source Software
Maintained by INRIA (Research Lab in France)
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ObjectWeb
www.objectweb.org
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Projects must fit into one of the categories:
 communications, database, desktop
environment, education,
games/entertainment, internet, multimedia,
office/business, other/nonlisted topic,
printing, religion, scientific/engineering,
security, software development, system,
terminals and text editors
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ObjectWeb
www.objectweb.org
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Result of the project
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middleware component
reused by several software platforms and
application domains
Project must participate in the discussions of
the evolution of the ObjectWeb code base
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ObjectWeb
www.objectweb.org
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Project Registration:
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Complex
Detailed information is required (much like a formal
project submission)
LGLP license is recommended
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ObjectWeb – Advantages
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CVS
Web page
Forum
Mailing list
Task management
Backup
Trackers
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bugs
support requests
patches
feature requests
Help from external developers
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Example of hosted project
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http://forge.objectweb.org/projects/activexml/
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Savannah
http://savannah.gnu.org
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Projects must fall into one of four categories:
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software project
documentation project
free educational book
FSF/GNU Project
Non-GNU Projects are hosted at
http://savannah.nongnu.org
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Functionalities of both portals are the same
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Savannah
http://savannah.gnu.org
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Registration process:
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Requires detailed description of the project
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URL of the source code (if any)
List of libraries used in the source code
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Savannah – Advantages
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CVS
Web page
Mailing list
Bug tracking
Support requests management
Task management
Help from external users
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Example of hosted project
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http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/acml/
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Código Livre
http://codigolivre.org.br
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Brazilian portal
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Goal is to support the development of Free
Software in Brazil
Created by UNIVATES and currently supported by
UNICAMP
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Código Livre
http://codigolivre.org.br
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Project Registration
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detailed description of the project and its goals
the category in which it falls (desktop environment,
databases, communication, software development,
text editor, education, printing, internet,
games/entertainment, multimedia, office/business,
other/non-listed, religion, scientific/engineering,
security, system, terminal)
The list of categories is the same as the one in
ObjectWeb
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They both use a software provided by SourceForge
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Código Livre – Advantages
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CVS
Mailing lists
Bug tracking
Forums
Task management
Web page
Backup
Documentation
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Example of hosted project
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http://codigolivre.org.br/projects/postgresqlbr/
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Java.net
www.java.net
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Portal that hosts Java projects
Projects with no source code are accepted
under an Incubator Project
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Projects are graduated when they release source
code
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Java.net
www.java.net
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Project Registration:
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Inform the project goals and description
Contact information
Choose a community (Embedded Java, Global Education
and Learning Community, Java Communications, Java
Distributed Data Acquisition and Control, Java Enterprise,
Java Games, Java Patterns, Java Specification Requests,
Java Tools, Java User Groups, Java Web Services and XML,
Java Desktop, JXTA, Linux, Mac Java Community and
Portlet)
Topics related to the project
Category
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Java.net – Advantages
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CVS
File sharing
Discussion forums
Issue tracking
Mailing lists
News postings
Event postings
Weblog
Wiki
Help from external users
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Example of hosted project
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https://wiseman.dev.java.net/
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Outline
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Motivation
Methodology
Web Portals
Comparison and Conclusion
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Comparison
Source
Forge
Apache
Tigris
Object
Web
Savannah
Código
Livre
Java.
net
Version
Control
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
Remove
CVS from
public
view
V
V
?
?
?
V
?
Forum
V

V
V

V
V
Mailing
Lists
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
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Comparison
Source
Forge
Apache
Tigris
Object
Web
Savann
ah
Código
Livre
Java.
net
Web
Page
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
Bug
Tracking
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
Documentation
V
V

V
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V
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owner
owner
owner
owner
owner
Intellectual
Property
owner
Apache
Foundation
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Comparison
Source
Forge
Apache
Tigris
Object
Web
Savannah
Código
Livre
Java.
net
Support
after
termination
V

?
V
?
V
?
Task
Management
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
Backup
V
?
?
V

V

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Comparison
Source
Forge
Restrictions
regarding
the
project
Categories
Apache
Tigris
Object
Web
Savannah
Collab.
Formal
sw
submisFind a develCategories
sion
sponsor
opprocess,
ment
LGPL
tool
Código
Livre
Java.
net
Categories
Java
project,
Categories
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Conclusion
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Portals that offer the major number of
advantages:
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Source Forge
Código Livre
Object Web
Código Livre: is in Portuguese (only local
visibility)
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Conclusion
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This study has shown
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the large amount of options for project hosting
The pros and cons of each portal
We hope it will help developers in the choice of
a portal for their projects
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Conclusion
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This study is part of a Free Software
development project: PARGRES
Financed by FINEP/Itautec
 More details tomorrow (Technical
Session at 11hs)
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PARGRES
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PARGRES: uma camada de processamento
paralelo de consultas sobre o PostgreSQL
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Autores: Marta Mattoso, Geraldo Zimbrão, Alexandre A.
B. Lima, Fernanda Baião, Vanessa P. Braganholo,
Albino A. Aveleda, Bernardo Miranda, Bruno Kinder
Almentero, Marcelo Nunes Costa
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A comparison of Free
Software Web Portals
Vanessa P. Braganholo
Marta Mattoso
{vanessa,marta}@cos.ufrj.br