3 ms·

Many people commenting here say that github did not bring anything new to the game. While that is partially correct we know that bringing only new things does n

Many people commenting here say that github did not bring anything new to the game. While that is partially correct we know that bringing only new things does not matter. What matters is slick,seamless polishing of existing ideas and execution. There are many examples of just reinventing the wheel and making it more beatiful and usable. To your original question: sourceforge was huge, google code, cvs, bazillion of local "downloads.com" etc

pluma 9y ago
I think it's incredibly naive to underestimate how much value GitHub provided by shifting the focus from users to developers and putting contribution front and center. SourceForge was primarily a way to distribute software. While most software would be under some form of open source license you'd often also find plenty of projects that either weren't really open source or hosted their source code elsewhere. And when the source was on SF, the web interface for browsing it was unintuitive and unhelpful. The most intuitive use of SF for non-maintainers was downloading releases and leaving comments. There was a separate space for filing issues but it was pretty much just another forum. And let's not forget that contributing code also meant you had to have experience with using SVN (or CVS, I think?) because learning that at the time felt even more daunting than git does now. Before THAT you were mostly confined to sending patches to newsgroups or mailing lists as far as I recall. I open sourced a single project on SF and beyond that never really got into open source until GitHub made it painless and straightforward -- I doubt I'm the only one.
- k__ 9y ago
  So true. Coming from times when I had to download my PHP libs from SF and trying to get some fixes landed, everything's much different and better now. I get everything via a simple npm install and landing PRs has never been easier.

pluma 9y ago

I think it's incredibly naive to underestimate how much value GitHub provided by shifting the focus from users to developers and putting contribution front and center. SourceForge was primarily a way to distribute software. While most software would be under some form of open source license you'd often also find plenty of projects that either weren't really open source or hosted their source code elsewhere. And when the source was on SF, the web interface for browsing it was unintuitive and unhelpful. The most intuitive use of SF for non-maintainers was downloading releases and leaving comments. There was a separate space for filing issues but it was pretty much just another forum. And let's not forget that contributing code also meant you had to have experience with using SVN (or CVS, I think?) because learning that at the time felt even more daunting than git does now. Before THAT you were mostly confined to sending patches to newsgroups or mailing lists as far as I recall. I open sourced a single project on SF and beyond that never really got into open source until GitHub made it painless and straightforward -- I doubt I'm the only one.

k__ 9y ago
So true. Coming from times when I had to download my PHP libs from SF and trying to get some fixes landed, everything's much different and better now. I get everything via a simple npm install and landing PRs has never been easier.