VA LINUX ANNOUNCES AMBITIOUS INITIATIVE FOR 'OPEN SOURCE' PROJECTS.Open Source Development Site Already Home To More Than 700 Projects, Over 3,000 DevelopersLinux-based solutions provider VA Linux Systems of Sunnyvale, Calif., last week formally introduced SourceForge - a major "Open Source" initiative that will provide over 700 open source development projects with extensive hosting and communication resources. The services are available at no cost to open source developers. "On SourceForge, developers can realize the best of both worlds: the quality and flexibility of open source software development and the extensive resources available through a well staffed, responsive application service provider," says Larry Augustin Larry Augustin is a venture capitalist and the the former chairman of VA Software, now known as SourceForge, Inc.. He founded VA Research, the predecessor to that company, in 1993 while a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering at Stanford University. , president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of VA Linux. "SourceForge represents a dramatic departure from the traditional practices of proprietary software vendors, empowering software developers and users to work together to create their own future." The term "open source" applies to software that can be copied, modified and distributed without any fee and with few restrictions. Popular open source software, such as the Linux operating system operating system (OS) Software that controls the operation of a computer, directs the input and output of data, keeps track of files, and controls the processing of computer programs. , is continuously maintained and improved by large communities of developers who share information, code and suggestions. The freedom to examine, modify and re- use source code helps to enhance the quality of open source software and accelerate the rate of development. Over 3000 developers from 76 countries registered on the SourceForge site during the first seven weeks of testing. SourceForge services include web server space, version control tools, communication services and other Web-based tools for open source developers, designed to provide comprehensive security and ease of use. SourceForge offers professional quality software development and management tools, including upgrades and service, at no cost to open source projects; comparable commercial packages from other providers can cost $600 to $1,000 or more per user, Augustin says. SourceForge's user base has grown steadily at a rate of about 25 percent per week during the initial test period, largely by word of mouth. SourceForge now hosts a wide range of tools and applications, including several components of the Linux kernel; major Internet client and server applications for chat, e-commerce, FTP FTP in full file transfer protocol Internet protocol that allows a computer to send files to or receive files from another computer. Like many Internet resources, FTP works by means of a client-server architecture; the user runs client software to connect to , IRC (Internet Relay Chat) Computer conferencing on the Internet. There are hundreds of IRC channels on numerous subjects that are hosted on IRC servers around the world. After joining a channel, your messages are broadcast to everyone listening to that channel. , mail, news and the Web; and several business, scientific and educational applications. "IT organizations can now benefit from broader communities of software development and testing through SourceForge, taking advantage of the quality, customizability and interoperability of open source software," says John Hall, vice president of services for VA Linux. "VA Linux Professional Services will extend its current offerings with services specifically designed to help customers leverage SourceForge." VA Linux Systems' own open source development projects, such as VACM VACM View-based Access Control Model (SNMP) VACM Vector Averaging Current Meter VACM Virus Alerts for the Common Man VACM Vacuum Assisted Compression Molding , the VA Cluster Manager (see EDP (Electronic Data Processing) The first name used for the computer field. EDP - Electronic Data Processing Weekly/IT Monitor, Nov. 29, 1999, pg. 6), use the SourceForge environment. Other major open source projects on SourceForge include Topaz, a project to create the next generation of the popular Perl programming language, and The Berlin Project, a next- generation graphical system for Linux and UNIX UNIX Operating system for digital computers, developed by Ken Thompson of Bell Laboratories in 1969. It was initially designed for a single user (the name was a pun on the earlier operating system Multics). . In addition, several open source 3D graphics development projects - such as the 3dfx Glide drivers for Linux, the Direct Rendering Infrastructure In computing, the Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI) is an interface and a free software implementation used in the X Window System to securely allow user applications to access the video hardware without requiring data to be passed (slowly) through the X server. (DRI See Digital Research. ) Project, and the Crystal Space 3D engine - are hosted on Source Forge. The site hosts popular games for Linux as well, including the Quake source repository and Linux tools for Epic Games' "Unreal Tournament." For more information, visit http://sourceforge.net/ |
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