The LCG Savannah software development portal

A web portal has been developed, in the context of the LCG/SPI project, in order to coordinate workflow and manage information in large software projects. It is a development of the GNU Savannah package and offers a range of services to every hosted project: Bug / support / patch trackers, a simple task planning system, news threads, and a download area for software releases. Features and functionality can be fine-tuned on a per project basis and the system displays content and grants permissions according to the user's status (project member, other Savannah user, or visitor). A highly configurable notification system is able to channel tracker submissions to developers in charge of specific project modules. The portal is based on the GNU Savannah package which is now developed as 'Savane' with the support of the Free Software Foundation France. It is a descendant of the well known SourceForge-2.0 software. The original trackers were contributed to the free software community by XEROX, which uses a similar system for their internal software development. Several features and extensions were introduced in a collaboration of LCG/SPI with the current main developer of Savannah to adapt the software for use at CERN and the results were given back to the free software. LCG Savannah currently provides services to more than 800 users in some 100 projects.