Not sure where you're seeing failure? I remember that Google code was very popular back then alongside MS's Codeplex (for .NET stuff at least), both being bette

Not sure where you're seeing failure? I remember that Google code was very popular back then alongside MS's Codeplex (for .NET stuff at least), both being better than sourceforge, but neither really attempting to be businesses and just providing free code hosting. They both shut down around the same time with migration tools for GitHub, and as we all know, MS eventually went on to buy GitHub outright. For me, GitHub had only entered my sphere of knowledge when the Google code phase out started. It was pretty painful because I was already struggling to teach myself to code and git seemed incomprehensible compared to svn. Sourceforge was up there with cnet as being a somewhat sketchy site which could occasionally have something genuinely interesting to download, but usually did not. So I can kind of believe that GC/Codeplex weren't necessarily aiming to be profitable products. Selling access as an enterprise product was a common model even back then, and it would've been an obvious route if they were actually aiming for profit.