Comparison of Free/Open Source Hosting (FOSPHost) Sites Available for Hosting Projects Externally from Project Owners (Preliminary)

Disclaimer: All the data from this table was obtained from Freely/Openly/Publicly available sources (e.g. browsing the sites, reading the source code). None of the data was received by the author on a confidential basis.
  SourceForge  Savannah  BerliOS  freepository  Asynchrony  sunsite.dk  Icculus.org  
Brief Description  Largest and most well known, The standard, Extensive tools  Central point for development of GNU Software  Free Service for Open Source Developers, Part of Initative to mediate between Developers, Users and Commercial Bodies  Offer CVS service only (through SSL)  Host both Open and Closed Source, Market mature projects for money  Customized hosting for demanding projects  Small, elitist community focus mainly on Games  
Organisation  VA Software Corporation  Free Software Foundation  Berlios Team - employees from FOKUS  Run by John Minnihan  Asynchrony.com Inc.  Run entirely by volunteers, entirely sponsor-supported by Sun Microsystems, Inc., Aalborg University, and others  Run by Ryan Gordon, former Loki employee  
No. of Projects, excluding mirrors (From 5 Mar 03, Regardless of activities)  57,590  1,468  554  over 2,500  1,761  85  61  
No. of Members (From 5 Mar 03, Regardless of activities)  578,874  14,559  3,178  Unkown  32,338  Unknown  111 Shell Accounts + more developers  
Project Tools - Tools for Public/Developers 
  SourceForge  Savannah  BerliOS  freepository  Asynchrony  sunsite.dk  Icculus.org  
Standardized Format for General Information  Yes  Yes  Yes    Yes     
Project Homepage  Yes  Yes  Yes    Yes  Yes  Yes  
Role Management (Admin/Developer)  Yes  Yes  Yes    Yes    No (See 'Policies')  
Statistics  Project activity, net traffic, comparative stat.    Project activity, net traffic, comparative stat.    Yes  net traffic only   
Download Service  File Release  FTP  File Release, FTP  HTTPS  File Release  FTP  HTTP  
Version Control  CVS Command Line and ViewCVS  CVS Command Line and ViewCVS  CVS Command Line and ViewCVS  Command Line, ViewCVS and Web-based CVS management tool (Login, Adding/Deleting directories/files, members management)  CVS Command Line and ViewCVS  CVS Command Line and ViewCVS  CVS Command Line and ViewCVS  
Mailing List  Yes  Yes  Yes    Yes  Ezmlm, Mail Filtering  Yes  
Forum  Yes  Yes  Yes    Yes     
Project News   Yes  Yes  Yes    Yes     
Tracker  Bug / Support / Patch / Feature / Task / Task Dependency  Bug / Support / Patch / Task  Bug / Support / Patch / Task    Project Change Request / Task    Bugzilla  
IRC            Server provided SunSITE.dk:6667 and irc.ircnet.dk:6667  #icculus.org on irc.freenode.net  
Document Management  DocManager  FAQ  DocManager         
Screenshots      Yes         
Wiki      Yes         
Usenet            Yes   
webmail          Internal    Yes  
Surveys      Yes         
Project Tools - Tools for Administrators 
  SourceForge  Savannah  BerliOS  freepository  Asynchrony  sunsite.dk  Icculus.org  
Management for Public Tools  Yes  Yes  Yes    Yes     
Ask for Help  Yes  Yes  Yes    Yes     
Activity History  Yes  Yes  Yes         
Web Server-Side Scripts  PHP3 and 4    PHP3      SSI, PHP, Java(clients), JSP, other CGI on approval  PHP  
Shell  Yes  only some people have it  Yes      Available to selected developers  Available to team leaders  
Database  MySQL    MySQL      MySQL  MySQL on request  
Compile Farm  Yes             
Uploading  SCP, SFTP  CVS via SSH  SCP    FTP  FTP and rsync  SCP  
Personal Page for Developers 
  SourceForge  Savannah  BerliOS  freepository  Asynchrony  sunsite.dk  Icculus.org  
Skill and Experience  Yes  Yes  Yes    Yes     
Forum/File monitoring  Yes  Yes  Yes    Yes     
Projects Involved  Yes  Yes  Yes    Yes     
Assigned/Submitted issues from multiple Tracker Lists  Yes  Yes  Yes    Yes     
Diary  Yes    Yes         
Bookmark  Yes  Yes  Yes         
Survey      Yes         
Money Earned          Yes     
Web Space to Host Other Personal Information              Yes  
Community Tools 
  SourceForge  Savannah  BerliOS  freepository  Asynchrony  sunsite.dk  Icculus.org  
Access  Public  Public  Public  No community tools  Only for registered members  Public  Public  
Search Project  Keyword  Keyword  Keyword    Type / Status / Keyword / Various Date with sorting preferences     
Search People  Keyword  Keyword  Keyword    Name / Skill / Rating     
Project Listing at Front Page  Most Active / Top Download  Newest GNU / non-GNU / www.gnu.org projects  Top download / Most active / Newest    New / Top / Need Beta Testers / Completed    Projects listed by the requests of the maintainers of the project  
Classification  Topics  GNU and non-GNU  Topics      Just a single list of projects   
Latest News  On new releases  On new releases  On new releases    On site changes and company businesses  On server status and important projects news  On new releases  
Help Wanted  Yes  Yes (Front page)  Yes    Yes (searchable)     
Chat with Support          via a Client Java interface on site  Yes   
Other Features  Advertisements bar from customers             
            Opinion Polls   
          General Discussion Area (System / Technical / Projects)     
          Chat with support     
          SkillDrill (External company for skill certification)     
              List of Personal web sites  
              List of Miscellanenous web sites  
              Call for Donation & Credits for Donation  
Server Management 
  SourceForge  Savannah  BerliOS  freepository  Asynchrony  sunsite.dk  Icculus.org  
Virtual Hosting  Yes    Yes      host name at projectname.sunsite.dk with email   
Security  SSH (RSA 1 & 2, Recommended 2), SSL on web  SSH (RSA 1), SSL on web  SSH (RSA 1 & 2), SSL on web  100% SSL  SSH, SSL    SSH, SSL  
Backup  Explicit backup policy (5 type of data, daily)  Unknown policy  Unknown policy  Unknown policy  Unknown policy  Daily  Backup daily with one week archive  
Software for Web Interface of FOSPHost  SourceForge  Code based on SourceForge v2.0  Code based on SourceForge v1.5  freepository  Developed by Asynchrony  Drupal  Just a few html pages  
License of Web Interface  GPL (but download files not found and no CVS on 24/2/03 and a few other times)  GPL  GPL  GPL  Proprietary  GPL  Probably no need for a license  
Others 
  SourceForge  Savannah  BerliOS  freepository  Asynchrony  sunsite.dk  Icculus.org  
Policies  Free/Open Source Projects  GPL compatible licenses, GNU and non-GNU  Free/Open Source Projects  No restriction, Donation Encouraged  Both Proprietary and Open Source  Free/Open Source Projects  Free/Open Source projects  
    The expressed purpose of advancing Free Software      Completed project can generate cash to contributors     
          Emphasis on Money/Rating (sophicated calucations for projects and members for sharing cash     
  Data Preservation - contributors own the code but it will cannot be deleted from the site  Free Software/Rights to Code      Asynchrony owns the code     
    No dependencies to non Free Software           
    No GIF files           
    No revenue-generating Advertisements        No Commercial ads and/or banners.   
        Content must be legal    Satisfy Danish law.   
            Must use visible re-direction to external sites   
            Policy negotiable, Tools negotiable   
            Willing to adapt to individual needs   
            Must be in English or Danish   
            Welcome more volunteers to help run the site   
              Flexible and informal to meet the need of individual developers, no strict infrastructure such as 'Role Management'  
              Elitist, selective on projects to form a smaller community where individual need can be cared for  
              Most donations go to developers need (e.g. new video card, motherboard)  
Additional Services from sites in the same organisation  Part of OSDN (Open Source Development Network) network with Slashdot, NewsForge, etc  FSF Related topics and philosophies  Other services assist Open Source Business development such as SourceAgency and DevCounter         
      Some Documentations and Interfaces have European translations other than English         
Note:
  1. If an entry is blank, it may not mean that there is no way to obtain that service. For example, a project that has a homepage and database available can actually host many different tools, it just means that a service is not immediately available.
Criteria for evaluation candidate selection:
  1. Available to host new projects (so WebFrame is not included).
  2. I can only read English and Chinese so site such as TuxFamily.org cannot be evaluated. Sorry.
I hope to add more (e.g. ibiblio, Tigris.org and SEUL.org) but it will take some time.

Credits: This comparison is done by Haggen So and is released into the public domain.
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Updated: Fri Apr 4 04:52:55 2003, v0.03