5 ms·

what is exactly wrong with sourceforge? apart from the obvious superiority of github and social git services, i think sf is a decent project hosting service

mcpherrinm 9y ago
This project has been around for many years it seems (eyeballing the commit graph on github, it looks like 2004 or so). It doesn't surprise me if you'd pick Sourceforge in 2004, but they've done enough dodgy stuff that I'd choose something else today. At first, they had a confusing download UI with "DOWNLOAD NOW" advertisements that went to unrelated software. Then, they were wrapping adware into OSS project installers. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/08/gimp_dumps_sourceforge_over_dodgy_ads_and_installer/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/08/gimp_dumps_sourcefor... https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/05/sourceforge-grabs-gimp-for-windows-account-wraps-installer-in-bundle-pushing-adware/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/05/sourc...
- agumonkey 9y ago
  One guy on twitter told me the new SF parent company has "big plans" so maybe it will evolve in good ways.
- roblabla 9y ago
  Since then, sourceforge has been sold to another company, and they've been trying to fix some of their past mistakes[0][1]. [0]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/under-new-management-sourceforge-moves-to-put-badness-in-past/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/under... [1]: https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-acquisition-and-future-plans/ https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-acquisition-and-fut...
- exikyut 9y ago
  That was interesting to read through. One thing from the arstechnica link: > Apparently, SourceForge's mysterious "sf-editor1" has also claimed ownership of a number of other accounts for open source and other software projects. The following are just a sampling of downloads now "brought to you by sf-editor1": > (List follows) I'm not quoting the list because the article is two years out of date and I'll honestly say I don't want to fact-check the status of the listed projects. But I will say this. I followed https://sourceforge.net/u/sf-editor1/profile/ https://sourceforge.net/u/sf-editor1/profile/ out of curiosity, and was met with > Atom (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/atom/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/atom/) > A hackable text editor for the 21st Century - > Bootstrap (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/bootstrap/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/bootstrap/) > HTML, CSS and JS framework for developing responsive websites and apps - > Brackets (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/brackets/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/brackets/) > A modern, lightweight yet powerful text editor - > Brave Browser (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/brave-browser/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/brave-browser/) > The faster, safer desktop browser for macOS, Windows, and Linux - > D3.js (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/d3js/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/d3js/) > A JavaScript library for visualizing data using web standards - > Electron (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/electron/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/electron/) > Build cross-platform desktop apps with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS - > Git for Windows (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/git-for-windows/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/git-for-windows/) > Bringing the awesome Git SCM to Windows - > MAME (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/mame/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/mame/) > An emulator for multiple types of arcade game hardware. - > Tor Browser (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/tor-browser/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/tor-browser/) > Browser for using Tor on Windows, Mac OS X or Linux - > VLC media player (https://sourceforge.net/p/vlc/ https://sourceforge.net/p/vlc/) > The best free media player for video and DVDs - In full disclosure I have not opened all of the above. To be fair, most say "/mirror/" instead of "/p/" so it's clear these are namespaced and considered differently. I saw the comment in this subthread about SF being sold to a group that's trying to clean up their reputation, so I won't pass judgement. It was very interesting to see all these headline projects owned by sf-editor1 though.
- rockybernstein 9y ago
  You are correct. At the time this was started there was no github; or git for that matter. I think I joined github around 2006 or so, and sometime after that converted either the CVS or svn repo to git. And I was a bit lazy in setting up the project since I didn't know at the time how long it would last. So it is under the mostly unrelated bashdb project that I started earlier. (The tenuous relationship was that I wanted to debug autoconf configure scripts, and having done that I then realized I often also needed to debug the Makefiles that automake produced. Okay I tried to motivate that, but really it was laziness.) As for sourceforge or github, there are a couple of things. As others have mentioned, sourceforge has a file release section. That is very useful for those who want to work off of release tarballs, rather than git tags. And the download stats can be ordered by both OS of downloading browser and Geography. https://sourceforge.net/projects/bashdb/files/remake/stats/timeline?dates=2004-08-31+to+2017-09-06 https://sourceforge.net/projects/bashdb/files/remake/stats/t... says mostly downloaded in US with MS Windows. Looks like the SF mapping function is broken, but I used to find it fun to see country distribution. Continent-wise, Africa has always been the lowest in activity. Over the years sourceforge has proved very reliable and has done lots of people a great service. In the early days I admired how good it was. Yes, it is unfortunate that they couldn't figure out how to monetize the good work they had done. Well, I have the same problem too. I'm not one to forget the good work they have accrued in the past. However, as you saw, I did switch to github for day-to-day use and use sourceforge for released tarballs, and mailing lists. I don't see anything wrong with using multiple providers. I also use Travis, CircleCI and Appveyor for continuous integration testing.

mcpherrinm 9y ago

This project has been around for many years it seems (eyeballing the commit graph on github, it looks like 2004 or so). It doesn't surprise me if you'd pick Sourceforge in 2004, but they've done enough dodgy stuff that I'd choose something else today. At first, they had a confusing download UI with "DOWNLOAD NOW" advertisements that went to unrelated software. Then, they were wrapping adware into OSS project installers. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/08/gimp_dumps_sourceforge_over_dodgy_ads_and_installer/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/08/gimp_dumps_sourcefor... https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/05/sourceforge-grabs-gimp-for-windows-account-wraps-installer-in-bundle-pushing-adware/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/05/sourc...

agumonkey 9y ago
One guy on twitter told me the new SF parent company has "big plans" so maybe it will evolve in good ways.
roblabla 9y ago
Since then, sourceforge has been sold to another company, and they've been trying to fix some of their past mistakes[0][1]. [0]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/under-new-management-sourceforge-moves-to-put-badness-in-past/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/under... [1]: https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-acquisition-and-future-plans/ https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-acquisition-and-fut...
exikyut 9y ago
That was interesting to read through. One thing from the arstechnica link: > Apparently, SourceForge's mysterious "sf-editor1" has also claimed ownership of a number of other accounts for open source and other software projects. The following are just a sampling of downloads now "brought to you by sf-editor1": > (List follows) I'm not quoting the list because the article is two years out of date and I'll honestly say I don't want to fact-check the status of the listed projects. But I will say this. I followed https://sourceforge.net/u/sf-editor1/profile/ https://sourceforge.net/u/sf-editor1/profile/ out of curiosity, and was met with > Atom (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/atom/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/atom/) > A hackable text editor for the 21st Century - > Bootstrap (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/bootstrap/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/bootstrap/) > HTML, CSS and JS framework for developing responsive websites and apps - > Brackets (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/brackets/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/brackets/) > A modern, lightweight yet powerful text editor - > Brave Browser (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/brave-browser/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/brave-browser/) > The faster, safer desktop browser for macOS, Windows, and Linux - > D3.js (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/d3js/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/d3js/) > A JavaScript library for visualizing data using web standards - > Electron (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/electron/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/electron/) > Build cross-platform desktop apps with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS - > Git for Windows (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/git-for-windows/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/git-for-windows/) > Bringing the awesome Git SCM to Windows - > MAME (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/mame/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/mame/) > An emulator for multiple types of arcade game hardware. - > Tor Browser (https://sourceforge.net/mirror/tor-browser/ https://sourceforge.net/mirror/tor-browser/) > Browser for using Tor on Windows, Mac OS X or Linux - > VLC media player (https://sourceforge.net/p/vlc/ https://sourceforge.net/p/vlc/) > The best free media player for video and DVDs - In full disclosure I have not opened all of the above. To be fair, most say "/mirror/" instead of "/p/" so it's clear these are namespaced and considered differently. I saw the comment in this subthread about SF being sold to a group that's trying to clean up their reputation, so I won't pass judgement. It was very interesting to see all these headline projects owned by sf-editor1 though.
rockybernstein 9y ago
You are correct. At the time this was started there was no github; or git for that matter. I think I joined github around 2006 or so, and sometime after that converted either the CVS or svn repo to git. And I was a bit lazy in setting up the project since I didn't know at the time how long it would last. So it is under the mostly unrelated bashdb project that I started earlier. (The tenuous relationship was that I wanted to debug autoconf configure scripts, and having done that I then realized I often also needed to debug the Makefiles that automake produced. Okay I tried to motivate that, but really it was laziness.) As for sourceforge or github, there are a couple of things. As others have mentioned, sourceforge has a file release section. That is very useful for those who want to work off of release tarballs, rather than git tags. And the download stats can be ordered by both OS of downloading browser and Geography. https://sourceforge.net/projects/bashdb/files/remake/stats/timeline?dates=2004-08-31+to+2017-09-06 https://sourceforge.net/projects/bashdb/files/remake/stats/t... says mostly downloaded in US with MS Windows. Looks like the SF mapping function is broken, but I used to find it fun to see country distribution. Continent-wise, Africa has always been the lowest in activity. Over the years sourceforge has proved very reliable and has done lots of people a great service. In the early days I admired how good it was. Yes, it is unfortunate that they couldn't figure out how to monetize the good work they had done. Well, I have the same problem too. I'm not one to forget the good work they have accrued in the past. However, as you saw, I did switch to github for day-to-day use and use sourceforge for released tarballs, and mailing lists. I don't see anything wrong with using multiple providers. I also use Travis, CircleCI and Appveyor for continuous integration testing.