Show HN: Effort to clone unmaintained SourceForge projects to GitHub

Post by scrollaway » Sat, Jun 27, 2015, 11:44 PM UTC

sytse wrote: post #70

scrollaway wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To answer your comment and dbbolton's simultaneously: My criticism of Savannah is based on aesthetics, but also on their model. Savannah has virtually zero funding. What do you think will happen, exactly, when an unfunded host can't keep running? Maybe their gnu website will receive some donation from Facebook or Google or something, but there is no incentive to keep the nongnu part running. It's just volunteer work.…

Scouring GitLab CEO here, as requested :) You asked for feedback on your negative comments on Savannah. We love free software and the ideals of the FSF, so I hope you understand I'll refrain from commenting. I do want to share something interesting with the caveat that it is a 'GNU projects for network services' server, not an official one, but we're happy to host https://git.gnu.io/explore/projects

Post by scrollaway » Sun, Jun 28, 2015, 12:06 AM UTC

carussell wrote: post #66

scrollaway wrote: post #58

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Props guys, I think you do an incredible job. GitLab is in fact a reasonable alternative, I should have mentioned it in my post. The reason we went to Github rather than Sourceforge is because of the community. Nethertheless, I think it's fairly foolish to focus on the platform (in the case here of archiving) - it's just a host. Stuff goes on domain 1 instead of domain 2. In either case it's still open source, the ar…

Contradictory signals in your rationale here. It comes off as if you're filling in a post-hoc justification. Is it just an archive or isn't it? If it is, what's so important about the community, then? It's fine that you chose what you did, of course. It's just that that in your defending it, you can't seem to decide whether you want to have your cake or eat it. If you wanted, this would have been a perfectly fine rea…

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 28, 2015, 12:38 AM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #38

scrollaway wrote: post #32

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> In 10 years time, Github may be the tired old service that gets acquired by a hedge fund that decides to monetize their repos. Such things are part of the corporate lifecycle. So fix it in 10 years. Git makes that easy. Point me to a good alternative to github that matches all your ideals. A free alternative to github - free as in beer, unless you're willing to fund this effort yourself, of course? We migrated one…

> Point me to a good alternative to github that matches all your ideals. A free alternative to github - free as in beer, unless you're willing to fund this effort yourself, of course? Gitlab? Savannah (of the nongnu.org variety)? Bitbucket? Gitorious? A basic VPS with SSH and git?

Post by scrollaway » Sun, Jun 28, 2015, 1:06 AM UTC

carussell wrote: post #77

scrollaway wrote: post #74

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You're very confused. I don't work with the Archive Team, I was offering my experience regarding our project 's move move from Sourceforge to Github and why GGGGGGGGP's (or something...) comment was way off base.

I originally wrote my comment[1] allowing for the idea that you were an uninvolved bystander, until a reread of your comment strongly suggested that you were part of the project being discussed. I suppose I got confused when you began talking about "we" and "our project". 1. The meat of which remains: if it's just an archive and the host is only being used as dumb storage, how is the "community" aspect of it a plus?

Post by nitrogen » Sun, Jun 28, 2015, 1:13 AM UTC

dbbolton wrote: post #64

scrollaway wrote: post #57

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Thanks? You completely missed the point of my post if you are taking this as an assault instead of criticism of the alternatives. So I'm going to repeat myself here: - Savannah is shit. Zero UX effort. Atrocious home page, branding, atrocious everything. - Unfunded efforts are unreliable. Get a grip on reality, man. This isn't afound foss or proprietary or whatever - it's about having a business model. - If you think…

All of your criticisms of Savannah seem oriented around aesthetics rather than its actual functionality. Personally I don't need much eye-candy for a git host because 99% of my work is done from the command line, but even if I cared about that I'd still pick Savannah over SF any day of the week.