One part where SourceForge wins and GitHub doesn't is executables can be downloaded.
You can host these on GitHub if you want, it's in the downloads section.
Why SourceForge Lost
21–30 of 52 posts
Re: Why SourceForge Lost
#22I would only argue one point in this: Github is not a developer's paradise. It's good. In fact, it's really good. But it has one huge weakness, something which all DVCS repositories seem to have followed: they charge per repository.
This is a terrible pricing model. It should, if anything, be based on per-GB of storage regardless of repositories. Otherwise it gets hideously expensive for people to, say, have many small repositories.
It just doesn't make sense that, say, the Linux kernel, and a 500 line personal Ruby project are equal units as far as Github is concerned.
Re: Why SourceForge Lost
#23I like Github a lot, and SourceForge has definitely dropped the ball, but is anyone else tired of linkbait article titles? SourceForge has a ton of projects still. They didn't "lose" anymore than Github "won". Competition is trip not a destination. Nothing is for sure, and there's no reason why SourceForge can't improve their service and take back more of the market. Us in the tech world need to stop thinking that so…
> SourceForge has a ton of projects still. That may be true, but I suspect that many, if not most, new projects aren't created on SourceForge anymore. Most statistics are lies, of course, but Github currently has 2M repositories (including forks), as compared to Sourceforge's 300K projects. Seeing as how SF is over ten years old and Github was launched in 2008, that says to me that Github's where the real action is n…
How many of those forks contain anything useful, though? Not that most SourceForge projects aren't abandonware, either.
Re: Why SourceForge Lost
#24One part where SourceForge wins and GitHub doesn't is executables can be downloaded.
And mailing lists. The day that GitHub allows me to create and manage mailing lists for my projects is the day I can finally tell sourceforge to burn in hell.
Re: Why SourceForge Lost
#25> Firstly, it’s not because GitHub’s front-end is nicer Nope, I'm pretty sure that's the reason.
This is illustrative of a fundamental misunderstanding among a lot of programmers about what 'front-end' means. 'Front-end' doesn't mean the colour scheme of the website. It means the features which are exposed to users, the mechanism in which those features are exposed and, broadly speaking, the way the entire thing is USED.
Programmers have a tendency to exaggerate the importance of what they do so that the 'back end' is bigger and more important than it actually is.
Re: Why SourceForge Lost
#26I would only argue one point in this: Github is not a developer's paradise. It's good. In fact, it's really good. But it has one huge weakness, something which all DVCS repositories seem to have followed: they charge per repository. This is a terrible pricing model. It should, if anything, be based on per-GB of storage regardless of repositories. Otherwise it gets hideously expensive for people to, say, have many sma…
Unfuddle charges by space used, not per-repo.
For Git projects, the per-repo pricing of Github is insane. They don't even have a public pricing plan for the number of repos I'd need for my personal (and private) coding.
I use Unfuddle for my private and business code.
Re: Why SourceForge Lost
#27I can say personally that the only reason I use GitHub and would never consider SourceForge is because of the D in DVCS. SourceForge always wanted to be your world: You have to give your repo over to them and let them manage it on their servers. By doing that you are now locked in to their world.
With git I don't care if GitHub goes down for a month or accidentally loses all my code or kicks me out and starts to charge for hosting. It's because they are hosting a copy of my repo and are not the sole keeper. I always have my repo with my precious source code history and it's impossible for them to take it away.
I suspect a lot of hackers are like myself and don't like giving up control where they don't have to.
That and GitHub just doesn't feel as hostile as SourceForge.
Re: Why SourceForge Lost
#28I would only argue one point in this: Github is not a developer's paradise. It's good. In fact, it's really good. But it has one huge weakness, something which all DVCS repositories seem to have followed: they charge per repository. This is a terrible pricing model. It should, if anything, be based on per-GB of storage regardless of repositories. Otherwise it gets hideously expensive for people to, say, have many sma…
Bitbucket charges by "private users". You can host as many open source projects as you want--many forks of the Linux kernel, for example--for free. However, if you want a private repository, you can only give read/write access to 5 people with the free account. https://bitbucket.org/plans
That's why I use it for all my projects--I have a Plan 9 kernel fork, an Inferno OS fork, and a bunch of smaller projects for a total of 13 repos, on the free plan.
Re: Why SourceForge Lost
#29One part where SourceForge wins and GitHub doesn't is executables can be downloaded.
And mailing lists. The day that GitHub allows me to create and manage mailing lists for my projects is the day I can finally tell sourceforge to burn in hell.
Just run them through Google Groups, it's extremely convenient. I host my project on bitbucket and run the dev list on Google Groups.
Re: Why SourceForge Lost
#30I would only argue one point in this: Github is not a developer's paradise. It's good. In fact, it's really good. But it has one huge weakness, something which all DVCS repositories seem to have followed: they charge per repository. This is a terrible pricing model. It should, if anything, be based on per-GB of storage regardless of repositories. Otherwise it gets hideously expensive for people to, say, have many sma…
Bitbucket charges by "private users". You can host as many open source projects as you want--many forks of the Linux kernel, for example--for free. However, if you want a private repository, you can only give read/write access to 5 people with the free account. https://bitbucket.org/plans That's why I use it for all my projects--I have a Plan 9 kernel fork, an Inferno OS fork, and a bunch of smaller projects for a to…
Even though I prefer mercurial to git, Bitbucket could get a lot of converts if they started supporting git. Bitbucket is not the serious competition that I'd like to see Github get. For developers that prefer Hg to Git, Bitbucket has to compete with Google Code, Codeplex, and others...
April Fools:
http://blog.bitbucket.org/2009/04/01/announcing-git-support/