I have a project that I created with IDEA.
I have created a mercurial repository with the source code and included the IDEA specific files ( .idea/workspace.xml and the rest ) But I don't think this is needed and/or may distract people using other tools ( such as eclipse, netbeans or ant )
I'm thinking in creating a clone to put those files but I wonder if this would be the best strategy.
Where to put tool specific files in source control?
Put them right in their natural place in your VCS, along with the rest of the code base.
It won't "distract" anyone for any other tool.
And use of, for instance, Eclipse, will simply ignore those IDEA-specific files.
See "Do you keep your project files under version control?" for more details on this topic.