CollabNet has acquired SourceForge Enterprise Edition (SFEE) from VA Software, adding to its range of collaborative software development tools.

Its products already include Subversion, a code repository, and CollabNet Enterprise Edition, a software development tool for distributed project teams. SFEE is another source code repository and collaborative software development environment.

Such Web-based development tools are increasingly popular with the geographically dispersed development teams common in many open source software projects, which often bring together enthusiasts with common interests but living in different time zones.

Between SFEE and its own tools, CollabNet will support 300 enterprise clients and 1.1 million individual users worldwide, it said. By combining the research and development teams for the two products, CollabNet hopes to fend off competition in the software development tools market from IBM.

VA offered SFEE as a free download for small groups of developers, making money on technical support or on software licenses for groups of 20 users or more. CollabNet has a similar business model.

The deal does not include SourceForge.net, a hosting service for open source software projects operated by VA subsidiary Open Source Technology Group (OSTG). SourceForge.net is home to many well-known applications, including Audacity, a cross-platform audio editing tool and eMule, a peer-to-peer file sharing client.

CollabNet will acquire the SFEE code, and will take on some VA employees involved with the product. In return, VA gains an equity stake in CollabNet. The companies gave no further financial details of the deal.