7 ms·

The Next SourceForge

203 points by fintler 14y ago

andrewguenther 14y ago
I feel like this is too little too late for Sourcefourge. I can often assume one of two things when I see a link to a Sourceforge project: 1. I am going to be redirected to Github or Google Code 2. The project is dead At this point, they are just playing catch up.
- eterps 14y ago
  Those were exactly my thoughts.
- zhynn 14y ago
  The fact that the platform is open source is relevant.
  - JoshTriplett 14y ago
    Yeah, even if they just succeed in cloning 80% of Github, that still provides a lot of value.
    - dubcanada 14y ago
      Look at GitLab. It's pretty much a clone of 80% of Github and it's open source.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- WestCoastJustin 14y ago
  It was too late years ago!
- slurgfest 14y ago
  To be honest, a link to Google Code is not much different from a SourceForge link by now.
  - rogerbinns 14y ago
    I host my personal projects on Google Code. In contrast to Github it lets you host files (especially important if not all your users have compilers or similar tools), and lets you have multiple repositories per project. Pretty much every hoster does two repositories per project - one for the main source and a second for the wiki. Having more than two is great. For example for work stuff I often have Android client and server as different repositories. But there is no need for them to have separate bug trackers or wikis - for an end user it is often hard to tell where an issue actually lies and having to copy issues between client and server side trackers is useless work. Github's issue tracker lacks being able to prioritise which is highly annoying. The most annoying problem with Google Code is they refuse to have private paid for hosting - https://code.google.com/p/support/issues/detail?id=1829 https://code.google.com/p/support/issues/detail?id=1829 Having all our employees create new Github accounts and doing administration there is a pain when we already do everything else at Google. I suspect paid project hosting would also help improve Google Code since there would be revenue behind feature requests and bugs.
    - raylu 14y ago
      Minor point: GitHub wiki's have git access. https://github.com/[user]/[repo]/wiki/_access https://github.com/[user]/[repo]/wiki/_access
      - rogerbinns 14y ago
        I don't understand what point you are trying to make. As I stated, pretty much every project hoster has two repositories per project for the code and wiki. Eg for github you have github.com/[user]/[project].git and github.com/[user]/[project].wiki.git With Google Code you can have any number of additional repositories eg the equivalent of github.com/[user]/[project].documentation.git, github.com/[user]/[project].testsuites.git, github.com/[user]/[project].androidclient.git etc With Github you would have to create new projects which means separate issue trackers, wikis etc.
- einhverfr 14y ago
  To be fair I participate in active projects on all three. But a lot of open source projects die, so a site of any age will have a lot of dead code.
freeman478 14y ago
Nice that they are contributing the code to the apache fundation ! Could be a good Free self hosted alternative to github:enterprise or others
- ptio 14y ago
  Very nice indeed. This could also replace Trac. http://sourceforge.net/projects/allura/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/allura/
- jurre 14y ago
  Check out http://gitlabhq.com/ http://gitlabhq.com/ too
  - Wicher 14y ago
    And RhodeCode: http://rhodecode.org/ http://rhodecode.org/
rubbingalcohol 14y ago
I don't like to bash on other peoples' hard work, but it seems like their focus on features and not UX may be a mistake here. The reality is that most developers use other services now and they need to make a better case for why I should care about them. More features != more compelling. Also I think the juxtaposition of the big green "Open Source" logo with "TM" is very ironic.
- signed0 14y ago
  It is the logo of the Open Source Initiative (http://opensource.org/ http://opensource.org/), not their own.
  - rubbingalcohol 14y ago
    How foolish I feel.
- eclipxe 14y ago
  There is nothing ironic about an Open Source logo being trademarked.
  - blollo 14y ago
    Indeed. I find it sad rather than ironic.
kmfrk 14y ago
At least it's great for the projects and project owners on the platform. As competition to GitHub and BitBucket, it just seems sad, frankly. But a rising tide raises all boats.
magic_haze 14y ago
> font-family:"Helvetica Neue"; Unbelievably sloppy, especially for something introducing a redesign. My browser is falling back to serif for most of the text... didn't _anyone_ at sourceforge test it on something not a mac?
- vanderZwan 14y ago
  Well, it's open source so go fix.
  - bluehex 14y ago
    While you're at it, please remove those terrible ads too. Thanks!
  - ciupicri 14y ago
    Where's the source code?
- alxndr 14y ago
  ...or at least pony up the cash to use a web font?
avolcano 14y ago
SourceForge still has a niche that's significantly different from GitHub or Google Code: it's made to be somewhat friendly to end-users of large open source apps. Honestly, I'm surprised they haven't fully pivoted to being an open source "app store" (with more community features i.e. forums and support).
- slurgfest 14y ago
  If SourceForge is friendly to anyone, it isn't end users. There is a lot they could do.
  - avolcano 14y ago
    Thus the "somewhat." Still, I've downloaded everything from torrent clients to open source video games from SourceForge, and many of those projects have (or, much more likely, had) active support forums on SF. It's a shame that they haven't pursued that route further and instead are just going after the Github/Bitbucket/etc market.
  - rdl 14y ago
    It's a lot better than github, IMO. Still not as good as a real project page with binaries, or ideally just having your package in macports, mac app store, ubuntu/debian repositories, etc.
    - einhverfr 14y ago
      I dunno. I would rather have a page with binaries plus macports, etc. There are a lot of cases where you may want to reach out to markets not covered by external repos or where you haven't gotten into every external repo you want to.
      - rdl 14y ago
        Yes, you should have both. Plus ideally presence on GitHub and Sourceforge. (I also would never use a service as my only repo...)
languagehacker 14y ago
Wow! When can I start using it? Oh, not four years ago? Then I think I'll stick with GitHub.
- dasil003 14y ago
  You would have switched from Github 4 years ago? Not me.
  - stevewilhelm 14y ago
    Joined Github Mar 17, 2009. Pretty close.
bitcartel 14y ago
Isn't competition great? Contrary to popular opinion, Github isn't the only game in town. Assembla: Git, Mercurial, Perforce, Subversion SourceForge: Git, Mercurial, Subversion Google Code: Git, Mercurial, Subversion Bitbucket: Git, Mercurial Github: Git
- prezjordan 14y ago
  Github: Git, Subversion. https://github.com/blog/1178-collaborating-on-github-with-subversion https://github.com/blog/1178-collaborating-on-github-with-su...
  - flurdy 14y ago
    Github: Git, Subversion, Mercurial. http://hg-git.github.com/ http://hg-git.github.com/
    - bitcartel 14y ago
      It's not quite the same as having native hosting of Subversion and Mercurial repositories. With a bridge and plug-in there might be some edge cases where things don't work as expected. I wouldn't risk my source code in this way.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - xmodem 14y ago
      By that logic github allows you to use CVS, bzr, darcs, monotone, TFS, whatever other VCS exists that has a git bridge of some sort. You miss out on any benefits of using that VCS over git and you introduce a huge performance sink. Github's subversion bridge in particular is pretty second-rate - it's really only useful for IDE integrations which don't support git, and even then it's of questionable value. It falls over or provides incorrect data for almost any SVN request that falls outside the standard checkout-update-commit workflow.
- edwintorok 14y ago
jff 14y ago
Why is this site design giving me such intense deja vu? I swear I've seen a site that looked just like this before. Maybe it's just that all sites look kind of like this these days.
jakejake 14y ago
I would like to see otherwise, but SourceForge looks like it could be the MySpace of code repositories. I used SourceForge Google Code for several projects and it just seemed like everybody abandoned ship for GitHub.
Mahn 14y ago
Sourceforge feels a little bit like the Geocities of developers now. Funny how things go.
khitchdee 14y ago
SourceForge needs to integrate with OpenHatch so its easier to get started with Open Source projects.
rsync 14y ago
Easy litmus test. Can I go to a project and immediately find a direct download link that I can paste into my terminal (for fetch or wget or whatever) ? Or is it still user-hostile, requiring multiple clicks (pageviews) to get to a "download link" that gives me some 200 character long, ephemeral-link-monstrosity that assumes (wrongly) that I want to download their linux source tarball to my GOD DAMNED LOCAL MACINTOSH. I'm not even going to bother to look.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  Spoilers -- it is still plastered with ugly as sin ads, each one competing with the others in an arms race for your attention by plastering important looking 'buttons' (really just part of the ad's graphic) for you to click, making it difficult to figure out how to actually navigate the site.
- cdmoyer 14y ago
  You know, I went to look at a new project on sourceforge, thinking I'd quickly prove you wrong. (I don't know why I still have any faith in sourceforge.) Guess what happened? I clicked on TWO SEPARATE ADS with a download now image in them. I captured it because I assume the ads change, but wow, terrible: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/78c81dc2-0a90-4e0a-8676-0d15d9017dc0/36ac37214962b3479348b32b6fec8753?noteKey=36ac37214962b3479348b32b6fec8753&noteGuid=78c81dc2-0a90-4e0a-8676-0d15d9017dc0 https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/78c81dc2-0a90-4e0a-8676... I eventually found the files link, and then clicked a download. And was taken to download page where I had to wait for my download to start, with some more ads. Yeah, screw that.
  - snarfy 14y ago
    That screenshot is all I needed to see.
benwerd 14y ago
I disliked and migrated away from SourceForge seven or eight years ago. Although it did let you provide compiled binaries / packages for end users, the process to do so was ludicrous, and the tools were paper-thin at best. rsync's comment about the download links are spot on; I can confirm that the Next SourceForge still gives you the ridiculous go-round when you want to grab the URL to an install package. The catalog of software could be great - GitHub doesn't provide this, except in a developer-friendly format. And maybe this format still works (obviously I don't know their numbers). But it's slathered in ads and still reminds me of Tucows - I bet there's a better way to solve this problem.
guptaneil 14y ago
I just visited the Allura project page to check out the new design, and my eyes had no idea where to look. There's just so much text with no clear layout. The job ads on the side have the same color and weight as the main project description, and there's so much extraneous information. My head starts hurting every time I visit an SF page. Even after this redesign, I don't see why anybody would use SourceForge for a new project over GitHub + GitHub Pages for the project page, other than they really hate git.
marshray 14y ago
I still see a big green "download" button that is in reality an advertisement for who-knows-what download manager. http://twitpic.com/as9agf http://twitpic.com/as9agf http://twitpic.com/c60rx5/full http://twitpic.com/c60rx5/full This is all I need to see to know they haven't really changed.
kanzure 14y ago
Man, when Sourceforge fixed the wget "misfeature" a few years ago, that was great. They should do more of that. Every time I hit a Sourceforge page, entire seconds are spent navigating to the actual page that I want. That's not to say that it's impossible to figure out how to get to where I want (that status is reserved solely for Launchpad). Rather, it just takes a lot of time to use Sourceforge. When the seconds are ticking away, and another page has to load, it's just infuriating. I want at most two page loads: whatever awful incoming link I came in from, and then the thing I actually want on the project. I keep forgetting the url structure, so I can't just type to what I want to get. GitHub and BitBucket have both done urls particularly well.. you can easily predict the exact url to immediately see the contents of a file. Let's examine some Sourceforge urls. main page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/docutils/?source=directory http://sourceforge.net/projects/docutils/?source=directory source code: http://sourceforge.net/scm/?type=svn&group_id=38414&source=navbar http://sourceforge.net/scm/?type=svn&group_id=38414&... Oops, wait, no. real source code: http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/ http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/ Let's see a file... pick a folder, click a file and you get this: http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/web/index.txt?view=log http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/we... I know this is viewvc, but who cares. When I click a file, I wanted the file, not the version history. Why is version history still the default action? Okay, click on the version and you get the content: http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils?view=revision&revision=7571 http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils?view=rev... Well, no. This is just a diff. Okay, let's try clicking on the file again because ??? http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/web/index.txt?view=markup&pathrev=7571 http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/we... File contents, at long last! But the real url to get the actual file is something like this: http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/web/index.txt http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/we... But does this work for other projects? Well, I seem to remember that FileZilla was hosted on Sourceforge.. let's see. http://filezilla.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/filezilla http://filezilla.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/filezilla Well, at least that worked. Click around a bit.. http://filezilla.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/filezilla/FileZilla3/trunk/ http://filezilla.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/filezilla/FileZi... Oops, repo moved. Well, let's try another project. http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/phpmyadmin/ http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/phpmyadmin/ After a bunch of clicking.. http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/phpmyadmin/trunk/phpMyAdmin/user_password.php http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/phpmyadmin/trun... At this point, I think a lot of Sourceforge's problem is viewvc. And the number of pages in between the project page and the things I need to do. I think getting rid of viewvc would probably be a huge step forward. Why should I even have to type viewvc in the first place? When you don't include viewvc in the url, you get to a directory index (argh): http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/phpmyadmin/trunk/phpMyAdmin/user_password.php http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/phpmyadmin/trunk/phpMy... But why am I including phpmyadmin in the url again anyway? It's already in the subdomain. And it's not a folder in the repository... so what's the deal. BLAH
moe 14y ago
Sourceforge used to be where code goes to die. Nowadays it's not even that anymore, I wonder when they will finally shut it down.
- DelvarWorld 14y ago
  Yeah I was hoping this blog post would be "the next source forge will be us closing down."
mcmire 14y ago
So, the next next next next SourceForge, then...
Surio 14y ago
This is what stood out for me. I am surprised that while so many of the comments are intensely hateful of the ads, but for a very tech-savvy site, most people actually seem to have no ad-blockers installed on their browser(s), which takes away virtually all of the ad problems? With ad-blockers, I find SF is just as smooth to navigate any any others out there.
- timc3 14y ago
  I don't use an adblocker, because its easier just to not visit sites I don't like
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- blablabla123 14y ago
  Eventhough I have no ad blocker installed, I don't see the ads because my mind filters them automatically.
SEJeff 14y ago
I'm sorry guys at VA (Larry Augustine is an ass who sues people. Look up the OpenVista lawsuit for reference where he sued some of my friends) but if you want to be new and hip, buy github and dump the sourceforge brand. It was great once upon a time, but simply doesn't offer what developers are looking for. As a casual open source dev myself, if I saw a _new_ project using sourceforge, I'd hold it against them. Why? The sourceforge mailing list archive web ui is beyond terrible and dealing with the ads and terrible navigation make it waste my time. Sorry, but a pretty face won't save market share.
- daveoflynn 14y ago
  Dice.com owns SourceForge now. For a chronology, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeknet#Geeknet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeknet#Geeknet Dice Holdings (DHX) market cap is ~560m. GitHub is almost certainly worth more, growing like crazy, and generally almost finished with making SF irrelevant.
  - SEJeff 14y ago
    Oh duh, I'd forgotten about that. One up vote for you sir! Thanks
mmanfrin 14y ago
The irony of a trademarked OpenSource logo...
- ward 14y ago
  Eeh, yes and no. I think their ( = Open Source Initiative) main reason for doing so is to give them the right to pursue sites/companies that would use their logo while not actually being open source in some sort of attempt to gain goodwill with the people that would care about it. You are quite free (http://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines http://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines) to use their logo in a lot of cases without the need to contact them at all. It is not like your average open source advocates are standing on fences wanting the right to put an "endorsed by apple/google/amazon/..." logo on their sites.
rg3 14y ago
I think SourceForge was great but we've been spoiled by Github or Bitbucket. I never minded the ads, which are used to keep the site running, and were a minor inconvenient to provide access to a huge amount of open source projects, which was great. Github and Bitbucket simply provided pages and sites which were easier to navigate. Specially Bitbucket, which has kept the Downloads section that Github removed. However, for me, the biggest "feature" that Github and Bitbucket provided was the ability to create projects easily because (a) the project name only had to be unique to your own projects instead of globally and (b) you could simply fill the project name and a brief project description to create it, instead of having to fill a form with lots of information about the project area and categories, licenses, development language or technologies, etc. Note I haven't used SourceForge for new projects in a long time, so I don't know if my observations still stand true.
foz 14y ago
The redesign is an improvement, but the usability is still miserable. The main nav with "solution centers" is really just sponsors. The fake download banners and links are so misleading. These attempts to get users to click on links makes my stomach turn. Compared to Github or Google Code, SourceForge still feels so dishonest. This is open-source software they are hosting here. Nine years ago I was a subscriber of SourceForge, because I thought they were helpful to developers and the communities around projects. I'd never consider paying them anything these days. I also found it surprising that Adium is the most popular Financial app.
znowi 14y ago
Now all they have to do is change the name :) Half joking, but for me, whenever I hear "sourceforge" - it's like a reminder from the 90s with heavy page loads and arcane user interface. It will take time to get over it.
Surio 14y ago
Another thing that's missing in this overall thread is context.... .... context of companies like SF, Yahoo, etc. Basically, SF (Yahoo, etc.) has been in existence before the days of dropping server costs, dropping bandwidth costs, dropping storage space costs and before the term devops was even being used in conversations ;-) Given this, and the fact that people were still figuring out how to scale and serve in the 90s, SF (along with Yahoo and some other web pioneers) was going ahead and practically doing it to scale, and doing it for "free" (if you train yourself to ignore the irrelevant ads, it is free!). To put this in context, Github/Bitbucket are all <5 years old by contrast. They've had all the time in the World to learn from the mistakes of these giants, and use all their learnings to get things right, and capitalise on EC2/AWS etc. (which was not possible during SF's setup period) :-) So, given that some of these companies are the "giants" whose shoulders have enabled us to come this far, context is very inmportant in trying to understand these venerable beasts! They may appear to be long in the tooth by today's standards but they have lent us their shoulders, on whom today's jazz and pizzazz depend upon. And for that I will always have a soft spot and gratitude for these internet pioneers like Yahoo, SF, etc. EDIT: Also to remember is, the business model around file hosting/repository management was not the same in the 90s until mid-2000s as it is now, so that also needs to be kept in context. P.S: Not affiliated to Sourceforge in any way.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
Why has it barely been mentioned that the platform powering SF is now open source? Don't like the ads? Think it takes too many clicks? Fix it, deploy it.
- efdee 14y ago
  How will that fix the problem at all? Will me changing the source code of my local copy of the source code somehow lead to the ads disappearing on SF, or me having to do less clicks when trying to download one of the six projects that still use SF for their hosting?
seanmcdirmid 14y ago
Today I learned sourceforge is blocked in China. Yet I feel no rage like I did when they were blocking github, interesting.
Jleagle 14y ago
If Google Code can't catch GitHub, then SF definitely wont.

203 points by fintler 14y ago

I feel like this is too little too late for Sourcefourge. I can often assume one of two things when I see a link to a Sourceforge project: 1. I am going to be redirected to Github or Google Code 2. The project is dead At this point, they are just playing catch up.

eterps 14y ago
Those were exactly my thoughts.
zhynn 14y ago
The fact that the platform is open source is relevant.
- JoshTriplett 14y ago
  Yeah, even if they just succeed in cloning 80% of Github, that still provides a lot of value.
  - dubcanada 14y ago
    Look at GitLab. It's pretty much a clone of 80% of Github and it's open source.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
WestCoastJustin 14y ago
It was too late years ago!
slurgfest 14y ago
To be honest, a link to Google Code is not much different from a SourceForge link by now.
- rogerbinns 14y ago
  I host my personal projects on Google Code. In contrast to Github it lets you host files (especially important if not all your users have compilers or similar tools), and lets you have multiple repositories per project. Pretty much every hoster does two repositories per project - one for the main source and a second for the wiki. Having more than two is great. For example for work stuff I often have Android client and server as different repositories. But there is no need for them to have separate bug trackers or wikis - for an end user it is often hard to tell where an issue actually lies and having to copy issues between client and server side trackers is useless work. Github's issue tracker lacks being able to prioritise which is highly annoying. The most annoying problem with Google Code is they refuse to have private paid for hosting - https://code.google.com/p/support/issues/detail?id=1829 https://code.google.com/p/support/issues/detail?id=1829 Having all our employees create new Github accounts and doing administration there is a pain when we already do everything else at Google. I suspect paid project hosting would also help improve Google Code since there would be revenue behind feature requests and bugs.
  - raylu 14y ago
    Minor point: GitHub wiki's have git access. https://github.com/[user]/[repo]/wiki/_access https://github.com/[user]/[repo]/wiki/_access
    - rogerbinns 14y ago
      I don't understand what point you are trying to make. As I stated, pretty much every project hoster has two repositories per project for the code and wiki. Eg for github you have github.com/[user]/[project].git and github.com/[user]/[project].wiki.git With Google Code you can have any number of additional repositories eg the equivalent of github.com/[user]/[project].documentation.git, github.com/[user]/[project].testsuites.git, github.com/[user]/[project].androidclient.git etc With Github you would have to create new projects which means separate issue trackers, wikis etc.
einhverfr 14y ago
To be fair I participate in active projects on all three. But a lot of open source projects die, so a site of any age will have a lot of dead code.

freeman478 14y ago

Nice that they are contributing the code to the apache fundation ! Could be a good Free self hosted alternative to github:enterprise or others

ptio 14y ago
Very nice indeed. This could also replace Trac. http://sourceforge.net/projects/allura/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/allura/
jurre 14y ago
Check out http://gitlabhq.com/ http://gitlabhq.com/ too
- Wicher 14y ago
  And RhodeCode: http://rhodecode.org/ http://rhodecode.org/

rubbingalcohol 14y ago

I don't like to bash on other peoples' hard work, but it seems like their focus on features and not UX may be a mistake here. The reality is that most developers use other services now and they need to make a better case for why I should care about them. More features != more compelling. Also I think the juxtaposition of the big green "Open Source" logo with "TM" is very ironic.

signed0 14y ago
It is the logo of the Open Source Initiative (http://opensource.org/ http://opensource.org/), not their own.
- rubbingalcohol 14y ago
  How foolish I feel.
eclipxe 14y ago
There is nothing ironic about an Open Source logo being trademarked.
- blollo 14y ago
  Indeed. I find it sad rather than ironic.

kmfrk 14y ago

At least it's great for the projects and project owners on the platform. As competition to GitHub and BitBucket, it just seems sad, frankly. But a rising tide raises all boats.

magic_haze 14y ago

> font-family:"Helvetica Neue"; Unbelievably sloppy, especially for something introducing a redesign. My browser is falling back to serif for most of the text... didn't _anyone_ at sourceforge test it on something not a mac?

vanderZwan 14y ago
Well, it's open source so go fix.
- bluehex 14y ago
  While you're at it, please remove those terrible ads too. Thanks!
- ciupicri 14y ago
  Where's the source code?
alxndr 14y ago
...or at least pony up the cash to use a web font?

avolcano 14y ago

SourceForge still has a niche that's significantly different from GitHub or Google Code: it's made to be somewhat friendly to end-users of large open source apps. Honestly, I'm surprised they haven't fully pivoted to being an open source "app store" (with more community features i.e. forums and support).

slurgfest 14y ago
If SourceForge is friendly to anyone, it isn't end users. There is a lot they could do.
- avolcano 14y ago
  Thus the "somewhat." Still, I've downloaded everything from torrent clients to open source video games from SourceForge, and many of those projects have (or, much more likely, had) active support forums on SF. It's a shame that they haven't pursued that route further and instead are just going after the Github/Bitbucket/etc market.
- rdl 14y ago
  It's a lot better than github, IMO. Still not as good as a real project page with binaries, or ideally just having your package in macports, mac app store, ubuntu/debian repositories, etc.
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    I dunno. I would rather have a page with binaries plus macports, etc. There are a lot of cases where you may want to reach out to markets not covered by external repos or where you haven't gotten into every external repo you want to.
    - rdl 14y ago
      Yes, you should have both. Plus ideally presence on GitHub and Sourceforge. (I also would never use a service as my only repo...)

languagehacker 14y ago

Wow! When can I start using it? Oh, not four years ago? Then I think I'll stick with GitHub.

dasil003 14y ago
You would have switched from Github 4 years ago? Not me.
- stevewilhelm 14y ago
  Joined Github Mar 17, 2009. Pretty close.

bitcartel 14y ago

Isn't competition great? Contrary to popular opinion, Github isn't the only game in town. Assembla: Git, Mercurial, Perforce, Subversion SourceForge: Git, Mercurial, Subversion Google Code: Git, Mercurial, Subversion Bitbucket: Git, Mercurial Github: Git

prezjordan 14y ago
Github: Git, Subversion. https://github.com/blog/1178-collaborating-on-github-with-subversion https://github.com/blog/1178-collaborating-on-github-with-su...
- flurdy 14y ago
  Github: Git, Subversion, Mercurial. http://hg-git.github.com/ http://hg-git.github.com/
  - bitcartel 14y ago
    It's not quite the same as having native hosting of Subversion and Mercurial repositories. With a bridge and plug-in there might be some edge cases where things don't work as expected. I wouldn't risk my source code in this way.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - xmodem 14y ago
    By that logic github allows you to use CVS, bzr, darcs, monotone, TFS, whatever other VCS exists that has a git bridge of some sort. You miss out on any benefits of using that VCS over git and you introduce a huge performance sink. Github's subversion bridge in particular is pretty second-rate - it's really only useful for IDE integrations which don't support git, and even then it's of questionable value. It falls over or provides incorrect data for almost any SVN request that falls outside the standard checkout-update-commit workflow.
edwintorok 14y ago

jff 14y ago

Why is this site design giving me such intense deja vu? I swear I've seen a site that looked just like this before. Maybe it's just that all sites look kind of like this these days.

jakejake 14y ago

I would like to see otherwise, but SourceForge looks like it could be the MySpace of code repositories. I used SourceForge Google Code for several projects and it just seemed like everybody abandoned ship for GitHub.

Mahn 14y ago

Sourceforge feels a little bit like the Geocities of developers now. Funny how things go.

khitchdee 14y ago

SourceForge needs to integrate with OpenHatch so its easier to get started with Open Source projects.

rsync 14y ago

Easy litmus test. Can I go to a project and immediately find a direct download link that I can paste into my terminal (for fetch or wget or whatever) ? Or is it still user-hostile, requiring multiple clicks (pageviews) to get to a "download link" that gives me some 200 character long, ephemeral-link-monstrosity that assumes (wrongly) that I want to download their linux source tarball to my GOD DAMNED LOCAL MACINTOSH. I'm not even going to bother to look.

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georgemcbay 14y ago
Spoilers -- it is still plastered with ugly as sin ads, each one competing with the others in an arms race for your attention by plastering important looking 'buttons' (really just part of the ad's graphic) for you to click, making it difficult to figure out how to actually navigate the site.
cdmoyer 14y ago
You know, I went to look at a new project on sourceforge, thinking I'd quickly prove you wrong. (I don't know why I still have any faith in sourceforge.) Guess what happened? I clicked on TWO SEPARATE ADS with a download now image in them. I captured it because I assume the ads change, but wow, terrible: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/78c81dc2-0a90-4e0a-8676-0d15d9017dc0/36ac37214962b3479348b32b6fec8753?noteKey=36ac37214962b3479348b32b6fec8753&noteGuid=78c81dc2-0a90-4e0a-8676-0d15d9017dc0 https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/78c81dc2-0a90-4e0a-8676... I eventually found the files link, and then clicked a download. And was taken to download page where I had to wait for my download to start, with some more ads. Yeah, screw that.
- snarfy 14y ago
  That screenshot is all I needed to see.

benwerd 14y ago

I disliked and migrated away from SourceForge seven or eight years ago. Although it did let you provide compiled binaries / packages for end users, the process to do so was ludicrous, and the tools were paper-thin at best. rsync's comment about the download links are spot on; I can confirm that the Next SourceForge still gives you the ridiculous go-round when you want to grab the URL to an install package. The catalog of software could be great - GitHub doesn't provide this, except in a developer-friendly format. And maybe this format still works (obviously I don't know their numbers). But it's slathered in ads and still reminds me of Tucows - I bet there's a better way to solve this problem.

guptaneil 14y ago

I just visited the Allura project page to check out the new design, and my eyes had no idea where to look. There's just so much text with no clear layout. The job ads on the side have the same color and weight as the main project description, and there's so much extraneous information. My head starts hurting every time I visit an SF page. Even after this redesign, I don't see why anybody would use SourceForge for a new project over GitHub + GitHub Pages for the project page, other than they really hate git.

marshray 14y ago

I still see a big green "download" button that is in reality an advertisement for who-knows-what download manager. http://twitpic.com/as9agf http://twitpic.com/as9agf http://twitpic.com/c60rx5/full http://twitpic.com/c60rx5/full This is all I need to see to know they haven't really changed.

kanzure 14y ago

Man, when Sourceforge fixed the wget "misfeature" a few years ago, that was great. They should do more of that. Every time I hit a Sourceforge page, entire seconds are spent navigating to the actual page that I want. That's not to say that it's impossible to figure out how to get to where I want (that status is reserved solely for Launchpad). Rather, it just takes a lot of time to use Sourceforge. When the seconds are ticking away, and another page has to load, it's just infuriating. I want at most two page loads: whatever awful incoming link I came in from, and then the thing I actually want on the project. I keep forgetting the url structure, so I can't just type to what I want to get. GitHub and BitBucket have both done urls particularly well.. you can easily predict the exact url to immediately see the contents of a file. Let's examine some Sourceforge urls. main page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/docutils/?source=directory http://sourceforge.net/projects/docutils/?source=directory source code: http://sourceforge.net/scm/?type=svn&group_id=38414&source=navbar http://sourceforge.net/scm/?type=svn&group_id=38414&... Oops, wait, no. real source code: http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/ http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/ Let's see a file... pick a folder, click a file and you get this: http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/web/index.txt?view=log http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/we... I know this is viewvc, but who cares. When I click a file, I wanted the file, not the version history. Why is version history still the default action? Okay, click on the version and you get the content: http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils?view=revision&revision=7571 http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils?view=rev... Well, no. This is just a diff. Okay, let's try clicking on the file again because ??? http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/web/index.txt?view=markup&pathrev=7571 http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/we... File contents, at long last! But the real url to get the actual file is something like this: http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/web/index.txt http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/we... But does this work for other projects? Well, I seem to remember that FileZilla was hosted on Sourceforge.. let's see. http://filezilla.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/filezilla http://filezilla.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/filezilla Well, at least that worked. Click around a bit.. http://filezilla.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/filezilla/FileZilla3/trunk/ http://filezilla.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/filezilla/FileZi... Oops, repo moved. Well, let's try another project. http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/phpmyadmin/ http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/phpmyadmin/ After a bunch of clicking.. http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/phpmyadmin/trunk/phpMyAdmin/user_password.php http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/phpmyadmin/trun... At this point, I think a lot of Sourceforge's problem is viewvc. And the number of pages in between the project page and the things I need to do. I think getting rid of viewvc would probably be a huge step forward. Why should I even have to type viewvc in the first place? When you don't include viewvc in the url, you get to a directory index (argh): http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/phpmyadmin/trunk/phpMyAdmin/user_password.php http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/phpmyadmin/trunk/phpMy... But why am I including phpmyadmin in the url again anyway? It's already in the subdomain. And it's not a folder in the repository... so what's the deal. BLAH

moe 14y ago

Sourceforge used to be where code goes to die. Nowadays it's not even that anymore, I wonder when they will finally shut it down.

DelvarWorld 14y ago
Yeah I was hoping this blog post would be "the next source forge will be us closing down."

mcmire 14y ago

So, the next next next next SourceForge, then...

Surio 14y ago

This is what stood out for me. I am surprised that while so many of the comments are intensely hateful of the ads, but for a very tech-savvy site, most people actually seem to have no ad-blockers installed on their browser(s), which takes away virtually all of the ad problems? With ad-blockers, I find SF is just as smooth to navigate any any others out there.

timc3 14y ago
I don't use an adblocker, because its easier just to not visit sites I don't like
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blablabla123 14y ago
Eventhough I have no ad blocker installed, I don't see the ads because my mind filters them automatically.

SEJeff 14y ago

I'm sorry guys at VA (Larry Augustine is an ass who sues people. Look up the OpenVista lawsuit for reference where he sued some of my friends) but if you want to be new and hip, buy github and dump the sourceforge brand. It was great once upon a time, but simply doesn't offer what developers are looking for. As a casual open source dev myself, if I saw a _new_ project using sourceforge, I'd hold it against them. Why? The sourceforge mailing list archive web ui is beyond terrible and dealing with the ads and terrible navigation make it waste my time. Sorry, but a pretty face won't save market share.

daveoflynn 14y ago
Dice.com owns SourceForge now. For a chronology, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeknet#Geeknet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeknet#Geeknet Dice Holdings (DHX) market cap is ~560m. GitHub is almost certainly worth more, growing like crazy, and generally almost finished with making SF irrelevant.
- SEJeff 14y ago
  Oh duh, I'd forgotten about that. One up vote for you sir! Thanks

mmanfrin 14y ago

The irony of a trademarked OpenSource logo...

ward 14y ago
Eeh, yes and no. I think their ( = Open Source Initiative) main reason for doing so is to give them the right to pursue sites/companies that would use their logo while not actually being open source in some sort of attempt to gain goodwill with the people that would care about it. You are quite free (http://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines http://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines) to use their logo in a lot of cases without the need to contact them at all. It is not like your average open source advocates are standing on fences wanting the right to put an "endorsed by apple/google/amazon/..." logo on their sites.

rg3 14y ago

I think SourceForge was great but we've been spoiled by Github or Bitbucket. I never minded the ads, which are used to keep the site running, and were a minor inconvenient to provide access to a huge amount of open source projects, which was great. Github and Bitbucket simply provided pages and sites which were easier to navigate. Specially Bitbucket, which has kept the Downloads section that Github removed. However, for me, the biggest "feature" that Github and Bitbucket provided was the ability to create projects easily because (a) the project name only had to be unique to your own projects instead of globally and (b) you could simply fill the project name and a brief project description to create it, instead of having to fill a form with lots of information about the project area and categories, licenses, development language or technologies, etc. Note I haven't used SourceForge for new projects in a long time, so I don't know if my observations still stand true.

foz 14y ago

The redesign is an improvement, but the usability is still miserable. The main nav with "solution centers" is really just sponsors. The fake download banners and links are so misleading. These attempts to get users to click on links makes my stomach turn. Compared to Github or Google Code, SourceForge still feels so dishonest. This is open-source software they are hosting here. Nine years ago I was a subscriber of SourceForge, because I thought they were helpful to developers and the communities around projects. I'd never consider paying them anything these days. I also found it surprising that Adium is the most popular Financial app.

znowi 14y ago

Now all they have to do is change the name :) Half joking, but for me, whenever I hear "sourceforge" - it's like a reminder from the 90s with heavy page loads and arcane user interface. It will take time to get over it.

Surio 14y ago

Another thing that's missing in this overall thread is context.... .... context of companies like SF, Yahoo, etc. Basically, SF (Yahoo, etc.) has been in existence before the days of dropping server costs, dropping bandwidth costs, dropping storage space costs and before the term devops was even being used in conversations ;-) Given this, and the fact that people were still figuring out how to scale and serve in the 90s, SF (along with Yahoo and some other web pioneers) was going ahead and practically doing it to scale, and doing it for "free" (if you train yourself to ignore the irrelevant ads, it is free!). To put this in context, Github/Bitbucket are all <5 years old by contrast. They've had all the time in the World to learn from the mistakes of these giants, and use all their learnings to get things right, and capitalise on EC2/AWS etc. (which was not possible during SF's setup period) :-) So, given that some of these companies are the "giants" whose shoulders have enabled us to come this far, context is very inmportant in trying to understand these venerable beasts! They may appear to be long in the tooth by today's standards but they have lent us their shoulders, on whom today's jazz and pizzazz depend upon. And for that I will always have a soft spot and gratitude for these internet pioneers like Yahoo, SF, etc. EDIT: Also to remember is, the business model around file hosting/repository management was not the same in the 90s until mid-2000s as it is now, so that also needs to be kept in context. P.S: Not affiliated to Sourceforge in any way.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

Why has it barely been mentioned that the platform powering SF is now open source? Don't like the ads? Think it takes too many clicks? Fix it, deploy it.

efdee 14y ago
How will that fix the problem at all? Will me changing the source code of my local copy of the source code somehow lead to the ads disappearing on SF, or me having to do less clicks when trying to download one of the six projects that still use SF for their hosting?

seanmcdirmid 14y ago

Today I learned sourceforge is blocked in China. Yet I feel no rage like I did when they were blocking github, interesting.

Jleagle 14y ago

If Google Code can't catch GitHub, then SF definitely wont.