7 ms·

Sounds like this can only be good for SourceForge after the previous scuzziness: > "When I say trusted – I mean trusted," he went on. "We disagree with some of

by a_e_k 11y ago

Sounds like this can only be good for SourceForge after the previous scuzziness: > "When I say trusted – I mean trusted," he went on. "We disagree with some of the previous monetization strategies from an industry and business perspective, and have immediate plans to discontinue programs inconsistent with our being a trusted and reliable resource for the entire open source community. I wish them luck. I'm not thrilled by the GitHub monoculture.

gosub 11y ago
at least a github exodus is just a git clone away
- zitterbewegung 11y ago
  No it's not if you want to have feature parity.
  - scrollaway 11y ago
    Essentially it is, though: http://doc.gitlab.com/ce/workflow/importing/import_projects_from_github.html http://doc.gitlab.com/ce/workflow/importing/import_projects_...
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  This is like saying that rsync and dropbox are the same thing. A github exodus is certainly possible, and it's great that github doesn't have a ton of tight lock-in (though it has some) via proprietary crap, but it's still a lot of work to leave github.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Incidentally, have you seen the original Dropbox post on HN? The second top comment is all about how it's pointless because you can "trivially" build the same thing yourself with FTP and other assorted software.
- chriswarbo 11y ago
  The same could be said of gitorious.org shutting down, but for the past 8 months it's been inaccessible by the Web or via git. It's just recently returned as a read-only archive (thanks to archive.org, I believe); they claim that clone URLs should work again now, although I've not had reason to try one yet. Keep in mind that even with announcements and long shutdowns, many projects would be lost without officially-sanctioned archiving; either because their author has moved on, or they might do all of their project interaction via git commands and never see warnings on the Web interface.
- johannes1234321 11y ago
  Except that every other site links to your repo on GitHub and all the Issues, pull requests, Wiki and Website are there.
  - dozzie 11y ago
    Well, hosting everything with a service that is backed by a company and over which you have no control was never a good move. See how Rainer Gerhards hosts his rsyslog (http://blog.gerhards.net/2013_12_01_archive.html http://blog.gerhards.net/2013_12_01_archive.html): one canonical repository, and GitHub as a peer. Given git's distributed nature, there can be as many clones in as many services (Gitlab, BitBucket, others) as maintainers deem sensible.
- lunchTime42 11y ago
  subtile source insertions- would you notice them? There is not even a measurement tool for trust on commits right now. Nothing like- (Line / NrOfDiffrentComittersTouching)* ComitersTrustworthyness according to other Projects * NrOfSimilarUnreviewedLines Where there is no metric, there is no trust, not even in open source.
- daemin 11y ago
  Except that the git is the least important part of GitHub. The real value is in the community and the extra services that it provides around the git source control system. To move away from GitHub one would have to not only clone the repository (and all of the branches, tags, etc), but also scrape off the Wiki, Issues, and contact information of contributors. Then they would need to set up an alternative with a similar security infrastructure and notify everyone relevant to its existence.
krylon 11y ago
I was thinking the same thing - it would be really nice if they could return SourceForge to its former status. I don't feel too strongly about GitHub one way or the other, but having some more options can only help.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  You can't repair such a breach of trust, sourceforge is forever tainted.
  - Ntrails 11y ago
    Not only that but it's incredibly difficult to build up trust as a host of installers/exes from scratch.
  - toyg 11y ago
    Not just that, SF's infrastructure is incredibly obsolete. Before the malware shenanigans started, they could have tried to relaunch with a full rewrite, keeping just the brand. Now even the brand is tainted, there is nothing left except a large database of users and SSH keys (and Slashdot, which apparently is still read by some people).
    - siegecraft 11y ago
      I think that's a bit harsh.. there is still a ton of software hosted only on sourceforge. And plenty of people that need the software that don't know about sourceforge's bad behavior. When I am researching random software or libraries, I find myself on an almost daily basis temporarily overriding the ublock rule for sourceforge.
meric 11y ago
Have you checked out Gitlab? It looks quite cool. https://about.gitlab.com https://about.gitlab.com
- akerro 11y ago
  It doesn't look good, it's great. I mean it. They give Gitlab CE for free on their website, see what it can do: https://about.gitlab.com/features/#enterprise https://about.gitlab.com/features/#enterprise Only gitlab.com does more than github + integration service. Recently GL CEO wrote here on HN that if you host gitlab yourself for your opensource project you could get lifetime CE version by writing to them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10924406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10924406
  - c0nfused 11y ago
    My experience on the two boxes I have installed GitLab CE on using the .deb packages was that it hosed apt in both cases. So, YMMV
    - sytse 11y ago
      Please email me or support@gitlab.com with this problem. I've never heard this before and we take this very seriously. Our Omnibus packages installs all GitLab dependencies in the /opt directory. If this is not your thing it might be good to know that there are now official native Debian packages for GitLab 8.4 (still working on Jesse backport).
  - sytse 11y ago
    Our Community Edition (CE) is MIT licensed and will always be free for everyone, without asking. We discussed giving GitLab Enterprise Edition (EE) licenses to open source projects. But it turned out that it is better to make the features that are essential open source completely https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10926400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10926400 So we did that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10931884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10931884 and will keep doing that.
- 11y ago
madaxe_again 11y ago
That's pure PR bull that'll have no bearing in reality - and if you boil that statement down he's said nothing, committed to nothing.
- a_e_k 11y ago
  True, most of what the guy said seemed pretty gauzy. But putting a stop to the bad practices was one of the few immediately actionable things he said.
NickBourbaki 11y ago
Why don't you setup your own private server on Amazon or Azure or whatever? Taking SF that uses Subversion, I'd install SVN server on cloud.

by a_e_k 11y ago

gosub 11y ago

at least a github exodus is just a git clone away

zitterbewegung 11y ago
No it's not if you want to have feature parity.
- scrollaway 11y ago
  Essentially it is, though: http://doc.gitlab.com/ce/workflow/importing/import_projects_from_github.html http://doc.gitlab.com/ce/workflow/importing/import_projects_...
InclinedPlane 11y ago
This is like saying that rsync and dropbox are the same thing. A github exodus is certainly possible, and it's great that github doesn't have a ton of tight lock-in (though it has some) via proprietary crap, but it's still a lot of work to leave github.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Incidentally, have you seen the original Dropbox post on HN? The second top comment is all about how it's pointless because you can "trivially" build the same thing yourself with FTP and other assorted software.
chriswarbo 11y ago
The same could be said of gitorious.org shutting down, but for the past 8 months it's been inaccessible by the Web or via git. It's just recently returned as a read-only archive (thanks to archive.org, I believe); they claim that clone URLs should work again now, although I've not had reason to try one yet. Keep in mind that even with announcements and long shutdowns, many projects would be lost without officially-sanctioned archiving; either because their author has moved on, or they might do all of their project interaction via git commands and never see warnings on the Web interface.
johannes1234321 11y ago
Except that every other site links to your repo on GitHub and all the Issues, pull requests, Wiki and Website are there.
- dozzie 11y ago
  Well, hosting everything with a service that is backed by a company and over which you have no control was never a good move. See how Rainer Gerhards hosts his rsyslog (http://blog.gerhards.net/2013_12_01_archive.html http://blog.gerhards.net/2013_12_01_archive.html): one canonical repository, and GitHub as a peer. Given git's distributed nature, there can be as many clones in as many services (Gitlab, BitBucket, others) as maintainers deem sensible.
lunchTime42 11y ago
subtile source insertions- would you notice them? There is not even a measurement tool for trust on commits right now. Nothing like- (Line / NrOfDiffrentComittersTouching)* ComitersTrustworthyness according to other Projects * NrOfSimilarUnreviewedLines Where there is no metric, there is no trust, not even in open source.
daemin 11y ago
Except that the git is the least important part of GitHub. The real value is in the community and the extra services that it provides around the git source control system. To move away from GitHub one would have to not only clone the repository (and all of the branches, tags, etc), but also scrape off the Wiki, Issues, and contact information of contributors. Then they would need to set up an alternative with a similar security infrastructure and notify everyone relevant to its existence.

krylon 11y ago

I was thinking the same thing - it would be really nice if they could return SourceForge to its former status. I don't feel too strongly about GitHub one way or the other, but having some more options can only help.

jacquesm 11y ago
You can't repair such a breach of trust, sourceforge is forever tainted.
- Ntrails 11y ago
  Not only that but it's incredibly difficult to build up trust as a host of installers/exes from scratch.
- toyg 11y ago
  Not just that, SF's infrastructure is incredibly obsolete. Before the malware shenanigans started, they could have tried to relaunch with a full rewrite, keeping just the brand. Now even the brand is tainted, there is nothing left except a large database of users and SSH keys (and Slashdot, which apparently is still read by some people).
  - siegecraft 11y ago
    I think that's a bit harsh.. there is still a ton of software hosted only on sourceforge. And plenty of people that need the software that don't know about sourceforge's bad behavior. When I am researching random software or libraries, I find myself on an almost daily basis temporarily overriding the ublock rule for sourceforge.

meric 11y ago

Have you checked out Gitlab? It looks quite cool. https://about.gitlab.com https://about.gitlab.com

akerro 11y ago
It doesn't look good, it's great. I mean it. They give Gitlab CE for free on their website, see what it can do: https://about.gitlab.com/features/#enterprise https://about.gitlab.com/features/#enterprise Only gitlab.com does more than github + integration service. Recently GL CEO wrote here on HN that if you host gitlab yourself for your opensource project you could get lifetime CE version by writing to them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10924406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10924406
- c0nfused 11y ago
  My experience on the two boxes I have installed GitLab CE on using the .deb packages was that it hosed apt in both cases. So, YMMV
  - sytse 11y ago
    Please email me or support@gitlab.com with this problem. I've never heard this before and we take this very seriously. Our Omnibus packages installs all GitLab dependencies in the /opt directory. If this is not your thing it might be good to know that there are now official native Debian packages for GitLab 8.4 (still working on Jesse backport).
- sytse 11y ago
  Our Community Edition (CE) is MIT licensed and will always be free for everyone, without asking. We discussed giving GitLab Enterprise Edition (EE) licenses to open source projects. But it turned out that it is better to make the features that are essential open source completely https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10926400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10926400 So we did that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10931884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10931884 and will keep doing that.
11y ago

madaxe_again 11y ago

That's pure PR bull that'll have no bearing in reality - and if you boil that statement down he's said nothing, committed to nothing.

a_e_k 11y ago
True, most of what the guy said seemed pretty gauzy. But putting a stop to the bad practices was one of the few immediately actionable things he said.

NickBourbaki 11y ago

Why don't you setup your own private server on Amazon or Azure or whatever? Taking SF that uses Subversion, I'd install SVN server on cloud.