6 ms·

This is a boring meme that needs to die in a fire. SourceForge have taken a few missteps in recent months (and received plenty of flak for it), but it's been a

by _wmd 11y ago

This is a boring meme that needs to die in a fire. SourceForge have taken a few missteps in recent months (and received plenty of flak for it), but it's been a reliable environment for open source development going on nearly 16 years. Note despite the silliness around their download system, repositories, lists and site hosting still function as they always did. As a result of the community backlash against SF's download wrapper, I've had to click through more "attack site warning" pages in the past month just to reach some valuable SourceForge project (of which there are many thousands) than possibly all the previous year combined, though I notice in the past few weeks, Google have silently dropped SF from their blacklist (no PR fanfare this time however). People continually use GitHub as some bastion of how things should be done, but someday GH will also exhaust its natural growth and start more aggressive upselling (regardless of their existing business model), quite possibly under a different management after the founders have all left for greener pastures. It's not a question of if that will happen, but when. Maybe in 16 years time? Who knows. It seemed deeply unlikely at one stage to imagine Google would flush Code down the toilet, but if it can happen at the second most valuable company in the tech industry, it can easily happen to a smaller company like Atlassian or GH.

simoncion 11y ago
I agree that that particular meme is of little value. However, if a project hosting site begins and continues to wrap project-provided installers with the site's own mal/spyware-delivering installer, whatever good will that site built up over the years is very rapidly burned away. > I've had to click through more "attack site warning" pages in the past month... You had to click through those "attack site warning" warnings because Sourceforge was serving malware(!!), not because of community backlash. > Google have silently dropped SF from their blacklist... I haven't checked, but that would probably be because SF.net decided to stop serving malware. > ...someday GH will also exhaust its natural growth and start more aggressive upselling... And when that day comes, folks will no longer recommend Github for project hosting. Dice's holding company completely failed to understand the nature of the community that Sourceforge served, and tried to increase revenue by attacking their customer's computers, rather than by hiring folks to rework and redesign the site, add new services, and remove any rough edges on the existing ones.
zamalek 11y ago
> SourceForge have taken a few missteps in recent months I'm curious as to why you put this in the past tense. SourceForge never backed down from their actions and continue to use the wrapper. > someday GH will also exhaust its natural growth and start more aggressive upselling Acknowledging that GH can go the same way as SourceForge is a very healthy mindset, however, "will" is a strong word because GH has a monetization plan (is always has) - the lack of which is what ultimately caused SF to go down the path that they did. What GH will or will not do does not deter from what SF is currently doing. Stop looking in your crystal ball and start looking at what is happening in the present. > It seemed deeply unlikely at one stage to imagine Google would flush Code down the toilet If you know Google you know this isn't the case. Google are ruthless with cutting ideas and products - just look at Reader. Google realized that Code wasn't making any money, saw that the platform was stagnating and saw that GH was doing a much better job at something that they had never really thought out. Exactly the same situation as SF. Two drastically different approaches to product death.
- kjak 11y ago
  >> It seemed deeply unlikely at one stage to imagine Google would flush Code down the toilet > If you know Google you know this isn't the case. Google are ruthless with cutting ideas and products - just look at Reader. Well, yes, it's obvious in hindsight... but Google started Code in 2005 and project hosting in 2006, while Reader was shut down in 2013. Github wasn't even launched until 2008.
  - Laforet 11y ago
    Google Answers 2002-2006 Google Wave 2009-2010 Google Reader 2005-2013 The list goes on Google has been like this from very early on. I won't be surprised if I wake up to the news that gmail is getting the axe should google decide that the product is no longer commercially viable.
- ksherlock 11y ago
  SourceForge's monetization plan from 2001--2007 was SourceForge Enterprise Edition.
rjst01 11y ago
> it can easily happen to a smaller company like Atlassian or GH. I work for Atlassian and I agree with the other posters that you're right to be skeptical, but it's worth pointing out that Atlassian has many product offerings other than Bitbucket.
- justizin 11y ago
  That could end up being part of the problem, if in ten years people are using Jira for project management in non-technical companies, a new management team could see source hosting as an albatross and a mistake of the previous regime. Despite best efforts, there is no known corporate structure that can protect its' customers from the lack of perspective of future leaders, who will be focused on keeping as much staff employed as possible and delivering profits to investors. The answer to this used to be places like cdrom.com, but I just checked and they're gone. :)

by _wmd 11y ago

simoncion 11y ago

I agree that that particular meme is of little value. However, if a project hosting site begins and continues to wrap project-provided installers with the site's own mal/spyware-delivering installer, whatever good will that site built up over the years is very rapidly burned away. > I've had to click through more "attack site warning" pages in the past month... You had to click through those "attack site warning" warnings because Sourceforge was serving malware(!!), not because of community backlash. > Google have silently dropped SF from their blacklist... I haven't checked, but that would probably be because SF.net decided to stop serving malware. > ...someday GH will also exhaust its natural growth and start more aggressive upselling... And when that day comes, folks will no longer recommend Github for project hosting. Dice's holding company completely failed to understand the nature of the community that Sourceforge served, and tried to increase revenue by attacking their customer's computers, rather than by hiring folks to rework and redesign the site, add new services, and remove any rough edges on the existing ones.

zamalek 11y ago

> SourceForge have taken a few missteps in recent months I'm curious as to why you put this in the past tense. SourceForge never backed down from their actions and continue to use the wrapper. > someday GH will also exhaust its natural growth and start more aggressive upselling Acknowledging that GH can go the same way as SourceForge is a very healthy mindset, however, "will" is a strong word because GH has a monetization plan (is always has) - the lack of which is what ultimately caused SF to go down the path that they did. What GH will or will not do does not deter from what SF is currently doing. Stop looking in your crystal ball and start looking at what is happening in the present. > It seemed deeply unlikely at one stage to imagine Google would flush Code down the toilet If you know Google you know this isn't the case. Google are ruthless with cutting ideas and products - just look at Reader. Google realized that Code wasn't making any money, saw that the platform was stagnating and saw that GH was doing a much better job at something that they had never really thought out. Exactly the same situation as SF. Two drastically different approaches to product death.

kjak 11y ago
>> It seemed deeply unlikely at one stage to imagine Google would flush Code down the toilet > If you know Google you know this isn't the case. Google are ruthless with cutting ideas and products - just look at Reader. Well, yes, it's obvious in hindsight... but Google started Code in 2005 and project hosting in 2006, while Reader was shut down in 2013. Github wasn't even launched until 2008.
- Laforet 11y ago
  Google Answers 2002-2006 Google Wave 2009-2010 Google Reader 2005-2013 The list goes on Google has been like this from very early on. I won't be surprised if I wake up to the news that gmail is getting the axe should google decide that the product is no longer commercially viable.
ksherlock 11y ago
SourceForge's monetization plan from 2001--2007 was SourceForge Enterprise Edition.

rjst01 11y ago

> it can easily happen to a smaller company like Atlassian or GH. I work for Atlassian and I agree with the other posters that you're right to be skeptical, but it's worth pointing out that Atlassian has many product offerings other than Bitbucket.

justizin 11y ago
That could end up being part of the problem, if in ten years people are using Jira for project management in non-technical companies, a new management team could see source hosting as an albatross and a mistake of the previous regime. Despite best efforts, there is no known corporate structure that can protect its' customers from the lack of perspective of future leaders, who will be focused on keeping as much staff employed as possible and delivering profits to investors. The answer to this used to be places like cdrom.com, but I just checked and they're gone. :)