Google has launched a new project-hosting service, a collaborative development environment that includes project workspaces with simple membership controls, version control via Subversion, issue tracking and mailing lists at groups.google.com.

“One of our goals is to encourage healthy, productive open source communities. Developers can always benefit from more choices in project hosting. Our project-hosting service is simple, fast, reliable and scalable, so that you can focus on your own open source development,” company officials say.

Before you create a new project, Google suggests you try searching for existing projects on its site and elsewhere on the web. You can often get further faster by helping out with an existing project than by starting one from scratch. If you're ready to start your own project, you'll need to write a description of it and give it a good name. Then, sign in using a Gmail account, enter that information into the Create a project page and create a brand-new project on Google Code.