8 ms·

Notepad++ leaves SourceForge

195 points by michaelfairley 16y ago

pistoriusp 16y ago
Cuba? I'm not a North American, but isn't all the trouble with Cuba over now? I recall a few months back that Nelson Mandela was on the terrorist watch list in the USA - And as such he wouldn't / couldn't enter the country. Perhaps this is one of those "laws" that was forgotten?
- akeefer 16y ago
  Unfortunately there's a large, politically-influential group of Cuban exiles in Florida. In pretty much every recent presidential election cycle, Florida has been a crucial swing state that could go to either side, so neither party has wanted to upset that group by normalizing relations with Cuba. From a political standpoint there's a lot to lose and nothing to gain from it, unfortunately.
  - jemfinch 16y ago
    Why would Cuban exiles want to embargo their former home?
    - akeefer 16y ago
      My understanding is that many of them fled following the Cuban Revolution and subsequent nationalization of property; the ones who were in Cuba at the time are likely either very old or dead by now, but presumably their descendants still harbor resentment over it. From the associated Wikipedia article: "Cuba began expropriating land and private property under the auspices of the Agrarian Reform law of May 1959. Cuban lawyer Mario Lazo writes that farms of any size could be and were seized by the government. Land, businesses, and companies owned by upper and middle class Cubans were also nationalized, including the plantations owned by Fidel Castro's family. By the end of 1960, the revolutionary government had nationalized more than 25 billion dollars worth of private property owned by Cubans." The angry Cuban ex-patriots are generally from that middle or upper class that had their property nationalized.
      - cdr 16y ago
        From what I recall, later immigrants and second-generation Cuban-Americans tend to be significantly less supportive of the hard-line stance towards Cuba. The original generation of immigrants dying off over time is likely what will lead to normalization with Cuba.
    - isleyaardvark 16y ago
      Because they hate Castro and they think, rightly or wrongly, the embargo helps. The idea that the Cubans in Florida are mostly immigrants from 50 years ago isn't supported by data, there's a constant flow of Cubans fleeing Cuba. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_American#Demographics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_American#Demographics)
- michaelfairley 16y ago
  US citizens are still forbidden from travelling to Cuba, and an embargo forbidding US companies from trading with Cuba is still in effect.
  - mturmon 16y ago
    Passed in 1996, not that long ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms–Burton_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms–Burton_Act
- sp332 16y ago
  A lot of restrictions have been lifted, but not all of them. http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2009/April/20090413170610eaifas0.2033502.html http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2009/April/20090...
dtf 16y ago
Google does the same: http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html Pretty ridiculous in this day and age.
- infynyxx 16y ago
  At least not Github http://help.github.com/terms/ http://help.github.com/terms/ and Bitbucket http://bitbucket.org/site/terms/ http://bitbucket.org/site/terms/
- melling 16y ago
  The law is ridiculous or complying with it? I think some people live in a fairy tale world. North Korea, for example, recently sunk a South Korean ship killing 41 people. There really are bad people in the world. Personally, I think the Cuba issue is legacy and it's probably time to resolve it. The fear of communism is long gone. Now I think it's just a matter of a bunch of rich voters in Florida who want their nationalized land back, which probably isn't going to happen.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    The US has killed far more than 41 people with lethal injections alone. But that is irrelevant. Why shouldn't North Korea's residents be allowed to work on Free Software?
    - petercooper 16y ago
      Open source developers working at the one, heavily monitored, most likely site-restricted cybercafé in Pyongyang? Syria, Iran and Cuba are different matters entirely, but people in North Korea are limited by having no Internet connectivity in the first place, than by being blocked by sites in the US. You may as well ask why the civilizations of Andromeda are stopping us from selling our wares there.
      - jrockway 16y ago
        So if they're already blocked off, why is it a legal requirement for US companies to block them?
synnik 16y ago
"You can access to all versions of Notepad++ on Download page of Sourceforge." Way to be consistent, dudes.
- zaatar 16y ago
  Wow, impatient, aren't we? See: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/content/notepad-new-site-notepad-plus-plus-org http://notepad-plus-plus.org/content/notepad-new-site-notepa... "The site is built by Drupal, some new features are added in the site, such as newsletter and multilingual system, and more functionalities might be added if need. It's not yet complete, and it'll be done ASAP."
- spthorn 16y ago
  "It's not yet complete, and it'll be done ASAP." Chill.
jojopotato 16y ago
Gah, I wish there was a contact link on there that wasn't twitter. The typo "fondamental" bugs me, then when looking for contact info I found "Developper" done over and over.
- mojuba 16y ago
  Just for the sake of explanation, "fondamental" and "développeur" are French words.
  - icefox 16y ago
    and 'aply' and 'gorvernment'?
    - mojuba 16y ago
      Impatient Hacker English?
      - Locke1689 16y ago
        No it's just bad English and lazy. When I publish something that I write in German and expect people to read it, I go through the trouble of running it through a German language spellchecker. Doing otherwise is lazy and rude to your audience.
        mojuba 16y ago
        ...and after running a spell checker on your text, put one or two insingificant but noticeable typos to let your readers know you're so cool you don't need a spell checker ;)
  - jojopotato 16y ago
    I figured because it was repeated it was simply the same word in a different language, but having it presented as English bugged me some =P
- 16y ago
drivebyacct 16y ago
Good on them.
grumpyfart 16y ago
What is a good alternative to Google Code and Sourceforge? Some platform which doesn't do discrimination? And why so many open source application just suck this up? Has anyone seen a comment from a big open source player who uses sourceforge or Google Code? People shouting to China for censorship and right here right now Google Code and Sourceforge practically blocks multiple countries at a time for months maybe more and no one cares?
jmillikin 16y ago
SourceForge doesn't have much choice in this, unless they're willing to violate US law. For what it's worth, SourceForge allows projects to determine whether their downloads are subject to export laws, and to disable the blocks[1]. Support for this was added in early February, several months before the notepad-plus-plus.org domain was registered. There's no technical or legal reason why N++ had to move off SourceForge; they're simply throwing a hissy fit. [1] http://sourceforge.net/blog/some-good-news-SourceForge-removes-blanket-blocking/ http://sourceforge.net/blog/some-good-news-SourceForge-remov...
- jafl5272 16y ago
  Agreed. As soon as this setting became available, I simply went it and set it to "does not incorporate ... encryption of any kind" for all of my projects that do not use encryption.
  - loup-vaillant 16y ago
    Wait-a-minute. Exportation of cryptography technology is still limited in the US? This law is long obsolete, why does it still apply?
    - kelnos 16y ago
      IIRC exporting encryption to the short list of disallowed countries is still illegal.
- DLWormwood 16y ago
  > There's no technical or legal reason why N++ had to move off SourceForge; they're simply throwing a hissy fit. What's wrong with moving off the server out of principle? While I'm American, I can't fault these guys if they suddenly felt less secure about the hosting of their work by a US company, especially if it's due to political reasons they'd have no recourse over if at some future point they risk being targeted (even unintentionally) by a future policy.
  - 16y ago
sauce71 16y ago
Barring coders from specific countries from using open source sounds totally wrong to me. The people are not the government in those countries, this ridiculous law harms the people more than the government. Still anyone able to read code will probably have no problem accessing the projects hosted in US based servers anyway.
koeselitz 16y ago
Aside from everything else, I like the new site design. I hate to say it, but the old one on SourceForge was sort of hideous. And it was kind of sad, because I really love this project - it's vibrant, and it's creating some really great things in Notepad++. I recommend Notepad++ to people constantly, but every time I'd find myself having to say "now when you go to this site... just ignore how ugly and confusing it is, and click the link to download." (And I always had to tell them what to click to download - note to devs out there, don't call the download link "binaries," no non-hacker knows what that means, and also it helps to underline and/or highlight links the way every other site on the internet does). The new site looks kind of like it's a Drupal form, but it's simpler and more intuitive than the old one already. Sections that you can understand, clear links. Yay! It'll be nice to just give people the URL and tell them to check it out.
- DrSprout 16y ago
  Sourceforge itself is kind of an eyesore for all the projects hosted there, regardless of the design of their primary website.
joanou 16y ago
That's about the stupidest waste of time and energy I've every heard of. Also France is not neutral... they have their priorities too.
metamemetics 16y ago
Good excuse for giving the site a much needed facelift. I used to use it as a decent super-lightweight IDE with the "Explorer" plugin locked to the right side and the all the icon toolbars hidden. I mainly use Eclipse now that I finally configured it how I want, but I still used Notepad++ today to teach a graphic designer HTML and CSS. Due to Notepad++, I can't use an editor that doesn't have highlight-on-click for matching opening<> and closing</> tags anymore out of annoyance.
juanufrj 16y ago
Doesn't that violates the GPL? I remember reading that it can't discriminate who can download the code... I know Sourceforge has to comply with US laws, but they still need to follow the GPL too.
- caf 16y ago
  No. The GPL says you have to give the source to anyone you give the binary to. If Sourceforge doesn't distribute a binary to anyone from those countries, they're in the clear. On the other hand it means that if I give a GPLed binary to an Iranian, I can't satisfy the GPL just by saying "oh, the source is up on Sourceforge".

195 points by michaelfairley 16y ago

Cuba? I'm not a North American, but isn't all the trouble with Cuba over now? I recall a few months back that Nelson Mandela was on the terrorist watch list in the USA - And as such he wouldn't / couldn't enter the country. Perhaps this is one of those "laws" that was forgotten?

akeefer 16y ago
Unfortunately there's a large, politically-influential group of Cuban exiles in Florida. In pretty much every recent presidential election cycle, Florida has been a crucial swing state that could go to either side, so neither party has wanted to upset that group by normalizing relations with Cuba. From a political standpoint there's a lot to lose and nothing to gain from it, unfortunately.
- jemfinch 16y ago
  Why would Cuban exiles want to embargo their former home?
  - akeefer 16y ago
    My understanding is that many of them fled following the Cuban Revolution and subsequent nationalization of property; the ones who were in Cuba at the time are likely either very old or dead by now, but presumably their descendants still harbor resentment over it. From the associated Wikipedia article: "Cuba began expropriating land and private property under the auspices of the Agrarian Reform law of May 1959. Cuban lawyer Mario Lazo writes that farms of any size could be and were seized by the government. Land, businesses, and companies owned by upper and middle class Cubans were also nationalized, including the plantations owned by Fidel Castro's family. By the end of 1960, the revolutionary government had nationalized more than 25 billion dollars worth of private property owned by Cubans." The angry Cuban ex-patriots are generally from that middle or upper class that had their property nationalized.
    - cdr 16y ago
      From what I recall, later immigrants and second-generation Cuban-Americans tend to be significantly less supportive of the hard-line stance towards Cuba. The original generation of immigrants dying off over time is likely what will lead to normalization with Cuba.
  - isleyaardvark 16y ago
    Because they hate Castro and they think, rightly or wrongly, the embargo helps. The idea that the Cubans in Florida are mostly immigrants from 50 years ago isn't supported by data, there's a constant flow of Cubans fleeing Cuba. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_American#Demographics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_American#Demographics)
michaelfairley 16y ago
US citizens are still forbidden from travelling to Cuba, and an embargo forbidding US companies from trading with Cuba is still in effect.
- mturmon 16y ago
  Passed in 1996, not that long ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms–Burton_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms–Burton_Act
sp332 16y ago
A lot of restrictions have been lifted, but not all of them. http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2009/April/20090413170610eaifas0.2033502.html http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2009/April/20090...

dtf 16y ago

Google does the same: http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html http://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html Pretty ridiculous in this day and age.

infynyxx 16y ago
At least not Github http://help.github.com/terms/ http://help.github.com/terms/ and Bitbucket http://bitbucket.org/site/terms/ http://bitbucket.org/site/terms/
melling 16y ago
The law is ridiculous or complying with it? I think some people live in a fairy tale world. North Korea, for example, recently sunk a South Korean ship killing 41 people. There really are bad people in the world. Personally, I think the Cuba issue is legacy and it's probably time to resolve it. The fear of communism is long gone. Now I think it's just a matter of a bunch of rich voters in Florida who want their nationalized land back, which probably isn't going to happen.
- jrockway 16y ago
  The US has killed far more than 41 people with lethal injections alone. But that is irrelevant. Why shouldn't North Korea's residents be allowed to work on Free Software?
  - petercooper 16y ago
    Open source developers working at the one, heavily monitored, most likely site-restricted cybercafé in Pyongyang? Syria, Iran and Cuba are different matters entirely, but people in North Korea are limited by having no Internet connectivity in the first place, than by being blocked by sites in the US. You may as well ask why the civilizations of Andromeda are stopping us from selling our wares there.
    - jrockway 16y ago
      So if they're already blocked off, why is it a legal requirement for US companies to block them?

synnik 16y ago

"You can access to all versions of Notepad++ on Download page of Sourceforge." Way to be consistent, dudes.

zaatar 16y ago
Wow, impatient, aren't we? See: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/content/notepad-new-site-notepad-plus-plus-org http://notepad-plus-plus.org/content/notepad-new-site-notepa... "The site is built by Drupal, some new features are added in the site, such as newsletter and multilingual system, and more functionalities might be added if need. It's not yet complete, and it'll be done ASAP."
spthorn 16y ago
"It's not yet complete, and it'll be done ASAP." Chill.

jojopotato 16y ago

Gah, I wish there was a contact link on there that wasn't twitter. The typo "fondamental" bugs me, then when looking for contact info I found "Developper" done over and over.

mojuba 16y ago
Just for the sake of explanation, "fondamental" and "développeur" are French words.
- icefox 16y ago
  and 'aply' and 'gorvernment'?
  - mojuba 16y ago
    Impatient Hacker English?
    - Locke1689 16y ago
      No it's just bad English and lazy. When I publish something that I write in German and expect people to read it, I go through the trouble of running it through a German language spellchecker. Doing otherwise is lazy and rude to your audience.
      - mojuba 16y ago
        ...and after running a spell checker on your text, put one or two insingificant but noticeable typos to let your readers know you're so cool you don't need a spell checker ;)
- jojopotato 16y ago
  I figured because it was repeated it was simply the same word in a different language, but having it presented as English bugged me some =P
16y ago

drivebyacct 16y ago

Good on them.

grumpyfart 16y ago

What is a good alternative to Google Code and Sourceforge? Some platform which doesn't do discrimination? And why so many open source application just suck this up? Has anyone seen a comment from a big open source player who uses sourceforge or Google Code? People shouting to China for censorship and right here right now Google Code and Sourceforge practically blocks multiple countries at a time for months maybe more and no one cares?

jmillikin 16y ago

SourceForge doesn't have much choice in this, unless they're willing to violate US law. For what it's worth, SourceForge allows projects to determine whether their downloads are subject to export laws, and to disable the blocks[1]. Support for this was added in early February, several months before the notepad-plus-plus.org domain was registered. There's no technical or legal reason why N++ had to move off SourceForge; they're simply throwing a hissy fit. [1] http://sourceforge.net/blog/some-good-news-SourceForge-removes-blanket-blocking/ http://sourceforge.net/blog/some-good-news-SourceForge-remov...

jafl5272 16y ago
Agreed. As soon as this setting became available, I simply went it and set it to "does not incorporate ... encryption of any kind" for all of my projects that do not use encryption.
- loup-vaillant 16y ago
  Wait-a-minute. Exportation of cryptography technology is still limited in the US? This law is long obsolete, why does it still apply?
  - kelnos 16y ago
    IIRC exporting encryption to the short list of disallowed countries is still illegal.
DLWormwood 16y ago
> There's no technical or legal reason why N++ had to move off SourceForge; they're simply throwing a hissy fit. What's wrong with moving off the server out of principle? While I'm American, I can't fault these guys if they suddenly felt less secure about the hosting of their work by a US company, especially if it's due to political reasons they'd have no recourse over if at some future point they risk being targeted (even unintentionally) by a future policy.
- 16y ago

sauce71 16y ago

Barring coders from specific countries from using open source sounds totally wrong to me. The people are not the government in those countries, this ridiculous law harms the people more than the government. Still anyone able to read code will probably have no problem accessing the projects hosted in US based servers anyway.

koeselitz 16y ago

Aside from everything else, I like the new site design. I hate to say it, but the old one on SourceForge was sort of hideous. And it was kind of sad, because I really love this project - it's vibrant, and it's creating some really great things in Notepad++. I recommend Notepad++ to people constantly, but every time I'd find myself having to say "now when you go to this site... just ignore how ugly and confusing it is, and click the link to download." (And I always had to tell them what to click to download - note to devs out there, don't call the download link "binaries," no non-hacker knows what that means, and also it helps to underline and/or highlight links the way every other site on the internet does). The new site looks kind of like it's a Drupal form, but it's simpler and more intuitive than the old one already. Sections that you can understand, clear links. Yay! It'll be nice to just give people the URL and tell them to check it out.

DrSprout 16y ago
Sourceforge itself is kind of an eyesore for all the projects hosted there, regardless of the design of their primary website.

joanou 16y ago

That's about the stupidest waste of time and energy I've every heard of. Also France is not neutral... they have their priorities too.

metamemetics 16y ago

Good excuse for giving the site a much needed facelift. I used to use it as a decent super-lightweight IDE with the "Explorer" plugin locked to the right side and the all the icon toolbars hidden. I mainly use Eclipse now that I finally configured it how I want, but I still used Notepad++ today to teach a graphic designer HTML and CSS. Due to Notepad++, I can't use an editor that doesn't have highlight-on-click for matching opening<> and closing</> tags anymore out of annoyance.

juanufrj 16y ago

Doesn't that violates the GPL? I remember reading that it can't discriminate who can download the code... I know Sourceforge has to comply with US laws, but they still need to follow the GPL too.

caf 16y ago
No. The GPL says you have to give the source to anyone you give the binary to. If Sourceforge doesn't distribute a binary to anyone from those countries, they're in the clear. On the other hand it means that if I give a GPLed binary to an Iranian, I can't satisfy the GPL just by saying "oh, the source is up on Sourceforge".