Pros and cons of sourceforge.net

Rinndalir · 08-03-2016, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ardvark71

I still run across their site fairly often in my searches, so they're still pretty relevant.

Because they show up in your search they're relevant.
I would bet the investors wouldn't find that to be compelling or to inspire confidence in the property.

Also most that I know of left their stuff there when they moved so search results are not meaningful.

syg00 · 08-03-2016, 10:52 PM

At least give them a chance to see if they can turn it around. No skin off any of our noses.
I used to use it a lot - can't recall a relevant reference in the last couple of years; probably why I was ignorant of the change of ownership.
Good luck to 'em.

loganabbott · 08-03-2016, 11:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rinndalir

It's too late for many, me included. I already moved away from that.

Hot properties have to be handled carefully. One mistake and it quickly cools. And others move in and rule the space.

The digital highway has many once hot properties all along it. Too many to recall.

As a test of your business acumen who rules the space sf.net once did?

Fair enough. We understand some people may not trust the SourceForge brand due to decisions of the previous ownership. We're not in this to make a quick buck, otherwise we wouldn't have taken the steps we did. We're in this for the long haul.

We know GitHub and Bitbucket and several others have entered since the days when SourceForge was the top dog. We're not trying to be the one FOSS repository to rule them all. We're interested in doing right by the 500,000 projects still hosted by great developers on SourceForge and the 1 million daily unique visitors looking for free software. Hopefully over time the skeptics see we are serious and trust us again. If not, of course that's their decision but it won't change our goals or operations. SourceForge is still an amazing place for developers looking to distribute their software and users looking to download it.

I think the open source community is best served when there are a multitude of options.

Thanks,
Logan

loganabbott · 08-03-2016, 11:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

At least give them a chance to see if they can turn it around. No skin off any of our noses.
I used to use it a lot - can't recall a relevant reference in the last couple of years; probably why I was ignorant of the change of ownership.
Good luck to 'em.

I appreciate the support!

ardvark71 · 08-04-2016, 01:29 AM

Hi all...

Just as a little test and if helps anyone, I downloaded a copy of this program from sourceforge.net and installed it on my copy of Windows Vista. The download was absolutely painless and quick with no "trickery" of any kind that I saw. I also did not see any kind of bundled software when I installed the program. After I installed it, I ran a scan with Malwarebytes (updated it right before I performed the scan) and it came up with nothing. I've included a copy of the results and a screenshot below.

I don't think you can get much better than that...

Regards...

astrogeek · 08-04-2016, 02:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by notKlaatu

The things I appreciate about sf:

* they are not trying to be yet-another-github in design and function
* they didn't close up shop the way gitorious and google-code did, but persisted

I do watch them closely; I make sure that I'm downloading what I think I'm downloading (and anyone who doesn't do an checksum of their download must be crazy anyway), but for me they have been and remain a very good source for open source.

I agree on all points. Indeed, compared to the gitorious scramble and google-code false promises, a few mis-steps by still standing SourceForge might be forgiven in time!

I like git and use it as my primary SCM, but I am not a fan of all the github clones for public access and browsable content. I always thought the SorceForge format to be much better in general, and hope that they can continue to provide a welcome alternative to the github-look-alikes.

As for relevance, I just ran a quick count of source code URLs in my local SBo 14.2 mirror.

Total projects: 5710
Total with SF* URLs: 1326

So 23% of SBo build scripts still download from SourceForge, that is certainly still relevant for Slackware users. And other distros would package their own versions of pretty much all of these, so it is not unique to Slackware.

(*.info files with 'sf.net' or 'sourceforge' in the DOWNLOAD URL)

Rinndalir · 08-04-2016, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

give them a chance

Strange message. The chance is only theirs to lose. No one else loses it for them. No one else gives it to them.

Rinndalir · 08-04-2016, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loganabbott

some people may not trust the SourceForge brand

Corp speak, ugh. I doubt very few users of sf see it as a brand or care about its brand. It is either easy to use or not, makes less work for you or it does not. Plus it is free to use.

loganabbott · 08-04-2016, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rinndalir

Corp speak, ugh. I doubt very few users of sf see it as a brand or care about its brand. It is either easy to use or not, makes less work for you or it does not. Plus it is free to use.

I just came on here to lay out the facts and the actions we are taking. It seems you've made up your mind about SourceForge, no worries. We're going to keep improving and making it a place developers and users like to go.

Thanks,
Logan

Rinndalir · 08-04-2016, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by astrogeek

So 23% of SBo build scripts still download

Somewhat meaningless data point all on its own. Do you have the same data back in time? That might be more interesting. Also interesting to see how it looks as time goes by. Are all the links to the latest packages? Etc., etc. How would you know if the project moved? Most just leave their project there to rot.

Rinndalir · 08-04-2016, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by notKlaatu

* they didn't close up shop the way gitorious and google-code did, but persisted

Since you like sf I guess you are presuming that gitorious/googlecode closed and that's a sign of their own failure and/or weakness. But to me it shows that they have better business acumen than the people behind sf. Whether or not you like github is not relevant. It's the easy place to put stuff. And with github.io it's a much more complete solution.

suicidaleggroll · 08-04-2016, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loganabbott

My company acquired SourceForge in January of this year and the first thing we did was remove bundled adware.

...

Lastly, we removed the deceptive advertisements that looked like download buttons, and introduced a reporting system whereby a user can report any ad on the site with the link under the ad.

Thank you for that, those were the two things that made me avoid SF whenever possible.

astrogeek · 08-04-2016, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rinndalir

Somewhat meaningless data point all on its own. Do you have the same data back in time? That might be more interesting. Also interesting to see how it looks as time goes by. Are all the links to the latest packages? Etc., etc. How would you know if the project moved? Most just leave their project there to rot.

Well, if a project has moved the SBo "DOWNLOAD" URL will follow it. Abandoned projects which are still viable are still valid in the SBo repos for their Slackware version. Abandoned projects which are no longer viable will not generally survive into the next SBo version release, so will have been removed.

Here is the historical data from my local repo (updated about a week ago):

Code:

Repo    SW Release              *.info  sf.net(1)       sourceforge(1)  SF URLS % of proj
12.0    1 Jul 2007              839     5               273             278     33.00
12.1    2 May 2008              1248    6               405             411     32.00
12.2    10 Dec 2008             1737    8               571             579     33.00
13.0    26 Aug 2009             2055    10              609             619     30.00
13.1    24 May 2010             2743    10              762             772     28.00
13.37   27 Apr 2011             3343    12              923             935     27.00
14.0    28 Sep 2012             3827    16              1043            1059    27.00
14.1    4 Nov 2013              5743    38              1313            1351    23.00
14.2    1 Jul 2016              5710    37              1289            1326    23.00

The sf.net and sourceforge counts are one per info file, so multiple references per file as sometimes appear will not increase the counts.

The dates are the corresponding Slackware version release dates, so the SBo releases would trail by a few days or weeks.

If you are not a Slackware/SBo user then please note that with each new Slackware release the preceeding version repo becomes effectively frozen with respect to updates (with exceptions), so the numbers for versions prior to 14.2 reflect their last maintained state around the dates of the following releases. This means that projects which moved during the time each release was open for updates will generally be reflected in those repos.

I leave interpretation of the meaning of these numbers to the individual reader, but I think that they clearly indicate continuing relevance of SourceForge.

*** UPDATE: I just updated the local repo, here is what changed:

Code:

As of Thu Aug  4 17:33:44 MDT 2016
14.2    1 Jul 2016              5770    38              1294            1332    23.00

Doug G · 08-04-2016, 08:10 PM

The OP seems to not like sourceforge very much, and keeps posting negative stuff over and over. I've had a sourceforge account since 2000, haven't used it much lately but I'm happy that the brief problems with adware have been quickly resolved.

So +1 for sourceforge

John VV · 08-06-2016, 11:29 AM

While i have have never had a problem with SF , just a minor annoyance
the 5 sec countdown to view advertising i do not see do to ( no-script,ad block plus,and or ghostery, privacy badger )

But git is a bit better than the older svn and i like it better than svn

so SF will really need to compete with github and maybe move from svn to git
-- but that will be a big issue
-- easy to say , hard to implement