Using the SourceForge Open-Source Web Site

Using SourceForge can be complex, or it can be easy. If you want to browse the code and files identified in this appendix, you can use a Web-based interface.

You can also use Concurrent Versions System (CVS) to download the source code and maintain up-to-date source on your own machine (http://www.cvshome.org/). For read-only access to the source code, get a CVS client (built into most development environments) and follow the instructions at http://sourceforge.net/cvs/ group_id=71513. These instructions are also accessible from the primary SourceForge project at http://sourceforge.net/projects/websvcdsnptn.

To use read/write access, you need a SourceForge user ID and a Secure Shell (SSh) to access the code. I use the following tools for my development environment:

• PuTTY: PuTTY is a free, open-source version of Telnet and SSh for the Windows platform and is available at http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html. Installation is relatively easy; simply unzip the programs to a directory. Using the instructions from SourceForge, you will use the PuTTY tools to generate a key for secure interactions with the project, and you will use the SSh facilities to transfer files from a CVS client.
• WinCvs: WinCvs is a free Windows client to the CVS system that SourceForge uses. The SourceForge instructions tell you how to modify WinCvs to use PuTTY as the SSh client to a SourceForge project. WinCvs is available at http://www.wincvs.org/. Installing WinCvs is typically as easy as running the downloaded executable binary.

You can find explicit instructions that tell you how to set up these tools and link the entire environment together at SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php docid=766&group_id=1). If this documentation link is not active or you are using different software, go to the SourceForge documentation home at http://sourceforge.net/docman/index.php group_id=1 and browse the available documentation for your particular environment.

Note

Other CVS clients are available for the Windows environment; in the past, I have used jCVS (http://www.jcvs.org) and the built-in CVS clients in development environments such as NetBeans (http://www.netbeans.org) and Sun ONE Studio (http://wwws.sun.com/software/product_categories/development_tools.html). I chose to use the WinCVS client for SourceForge because the SourceForge instructions give explicit details on setting up WinCVS and PuTTY. If you choose one of the other CVS mechanisms, you will probably still need to use PuTTY unless your chosen environment ships with an SSh environment.