Last Friday the BerliOS team announced that the repository will be closed on the last day of the current year. The BerliOS repository was launched 11 years ago and it was a reference site to the libre software community. Now, due to economic problems the team (Fraunhofer FOKUS) decided to it shutdown.
The message below was posted in the BerliOS forge on September 30th 2011:
BerliOS will be closed on 31.12.2011
Dear BerliOS developers and users,
BerliOS was founded 10 years ago as one of the first repositories in Europe. It was developed and maintained by Fraunhofer FOKUS. As an European, non-proprietary project BerliOS pursued the goal to support the various Open Source players and provide a neutral mediator
function. In 2011 over 4800 projects have been hosted on BerliOS, with 50,000 registered users and over 2.6 million file downloads each month. We are proud that with BerliOS we have brought the idea of an OSS repository to Europe. Meanwhile, the concept has prevailed and there are many good alternatives.
Unfortunately, as a research institute Fraunhofer FOKUS has only few opportunities to operate a repository like BerliOS. Such a project will only work with a follow-up financing, or with sponsors or partners taking over the repository. In the field of OSS this is a difficult undertaking. In a recent survey the community indicated some support in funds and manpower which we would like to thank you for. Unfortunately, the result is not enough to put the project on a sustainable financial basis. In addition the search for sponsors or partners was not successful.
Open Source is understood by Fraunhofer FOKUS as a paradigm for future-oriented intelligent use of IT. It hurts us all the more that we are forced to discontinue the hosting for BerliOS by 31.12.2011.
- As a developer, you should export your BerliOS project into another repository. For alternatives see http://en.wikipedia.org wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_software_hosting_facilities.
- On our site you will find a guide on how to get your project data out of the portal and migrate it in a different platform, see http://developer.berlios.de/docman/display_doc.php?docid=2056&group_id=2.
Fraunhofer FOKUS has a strong commitment to Open Source and interoperability, and is involved in numerous successful OSS projects. The institute focuses on the development of quality standards for Open Source software and in particular on the technical, semantic and organizational
interoperability between OSS components and between open source and closed source software. Example of our OSS activities including our management of the German Competence Center QualiPSo.
We thank all who have used BerliOS over the years.
Fraunhofer FOKUS