BerliOS is a project founded by FOKUS, a Fraunhofer Institute

Fraunhofer Society

The Fraunhofer Society is a German research organization with 60 institutes spread throughout Germany, each focusing on different fields of applied science . It employs around 18,000, mainly scientists and engineers, with an annual research budget of about €1.65 billion...

 located in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, to coordinate the different interest groups in the field of open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 software (OSS) and to assume a neutral coordinator function. The target groups of BerliOS are developers and users of open source software on the one side and OSS-related companies on the other.

BerliOS consists of several subprojects:

• Developer, a hosting platform for open source projects similar to SourceForge.net
  SourceForge.net
  SourceForge is a web-based source code repository. It acts as a centralized location for software developers to control and manage open source software development. The website runs a version of SourceForge Enterprise Edition, forked from the last open-source version available...
  
  , GNU Savannah
  GNU Savannah
  GNU Savannah is a project of the Free Software Foundation initiated by Loïc Dachary, which serves as a collaborative software development management system for Free Software projects. Savannah currently offers CVS, GNU arch, Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, mailing list, web hosting, file...
  
   and JavaForge
  JavaForge
  JavaForge.com is a non profit and free open source software development community with a hosting portal for open source projects. It hosts software development services such as Project related Web hosting, Document Management, Wiki, Forum, Online chat, Issue tracking integrated with optional Git,...
  
  
• DocsWell, a database for open source related documentation
• SourceWell, a news service for open source projects
• SourceLines, a "best practice
  Best practice
  A best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark...
  
  " database for successful open source projects
• SourceBiz, a list of open source companies
• DevCounter, a database of open source developer profiles
• OpenFacts, a wiki
  Wiki
  A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
  
  -based open source knowledge database (using the MediaWiki
  MediaWiki
  MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...
  
  software)
• SourceAgency (beta), a platform for coordinating open source funding

Closure and relaunch

The operators of the BerliOS project announced that BerliOS will close at the end of 2011 due to lack of sufficient funding and support.

At the news of the pending closure BerliOS received numerous rescue proposals. As a result it was further announced that BerliOS would continue as a non-profit institute run by a combination of volunteers, donations and corporate sponsorship.

External links

• Official BerliOS homepage
• OpenFacts2 (English portal) the BerliOS wiki