The State of SourceForge Since Its Acquisition in January
1–10 of 29 posts
Re: The State of SourceForge Since Its Acquisition in January
#2sounds like the new owners understand the mistakes of their predecessors.
Re: The State of SourceForge Since Its Acquisition in January
#3This is a very good development, but it's difficult to see what SF could do better than Github/Gitlab/Bitbucket, they are bogged down by 15 years of technical debt and a ruined reputation.
Maybe they could retool as a Cloudflare/Akamai competitor? Their network of mirrors is probably the one thing still distinguishing them. Or they could go full-FOSS and somehow integrate with distributions, like a cross-distro Launchpad, but that's a very very very niche market. Or they could find a mobile-oriented spin (I honestly don't know anything about mobile dev).
Or, and I say this very seriously, they could find a way of getting bought by Microsoft. A lot of SF projects are legacy win32 apps that people still find essential (FileZilla etc); MS could buy them and build an appstore that actually has the stuff people want, with real developer tools and workflow powering it all. MS backing would remove the malware stigma, at the very least.
Re: The State of SourceForge Since Its Acquisition in January
#4This is a very good development, but it's difficult to see what SF could do better than Github/Gitlab/Bitbucket, they are bogged down by 15 years of technical debt and a ruined reputation. Maybe they could retool as a Cloudflare/Akamai competitor? Their network of mirrors is probably the one thing still distinguishing them. Or they could go full-FOSS and somehow integrate with distributions, like a cross-distro Launc…
https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4n3e1s/the_state_...
3rd & 4th paragraph address your comment
Re: The State of SourceForge Since Its Acquisition in January
#5This is a very good development, but it's difficult to see what SF could do better than Github/Gitlab/Bitbucket, they are bogged down by 15 years of technical debt and a ruined reputation. Maybe they could retool as a Cloudflare/Akamai competitor? Their network of mirrors is probably the one thing still distinguishing them. Or they could go full-FOSS and somehow integrate with distributions, like a cross-distro Launc…
https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4n3e1s/the_state_... 3rd & 4th paragraph address your comment
Yeah I read that, but it sounds a lot like "compassionate CNet-ism". A first step, but hardly the stuff of dreams.
Re: The State of SourceForge Since Its Acquisition in January
#6This is a very good development, but it's difficult to see what SF could do better than Github/Gitlab/Bitbucket, they are bogged down by 15 years of technical debt and a ruined reputation. Maybe they could retool as a Cloudflare/Akamai competitor? Their network of mirrors is probably the one thing still distinguishing them. Or they could go full-FOSS and somehow integrate with distributions, like a cross-distro Launc…
> Or they could find a mobile-oriented spin
Of what?
Re: The State of SourceForge Since Its Acquisition in January
#7Their new advertised speed test has servers only in US. Completely unusable for the rest of the world (unless you need to measure your interned speed against US servers).
Re: The State of SourceForge Since Its Acquisition in January
#8This is a very good development, but it's difficult to see what SF could do better than Github/Gitlab/Bitbucket, they are bogged down by 15 years of technical debt and a ruined reputation. Maybe they could retool as a Cloudflare/Akamai competitor? Their network of mirrors is probably the one thing still distinguishing them. Or they could go full-FOSS and somehow integrate with distributions, like a cross-distro Launc…
Two things as the author said: ease of use; distribution channel with 1+ mil visitors. The GitHub system is just really weird. Makes sense when someone knows Git and/or goes through GitHub's tutorials. Going to SourceForge, I currently see a big, green, download button to immediately get the bundled app for several OS's plus files right next to it. No odd labels tied to last commit or anything. Just the files. If project owner side is as easy, then there's a definite advantage for people that want to set up a hosting and distribution channel without lots of trouble.
Re: The State of SourceForge Since Its Acquisition in January
#9This is a very good development, but it's difficult to see what SF could do better than Github/Gitlab/Bitbucket, they are bogged down by 15 years of technical debt and a ruined reputation. Maybe they could retool as a Cloudflare/Akamai competitor? Their network of mirrors is probably the one thing still distinguishing them. Or they could go full-FOSS and somehow integrate with distributions, like a cross-distro Launc…
What distinguishes SourceForge is that it has a lot of end-user features. Project owners can set up forums, a download area, a support area (distinct from the bug tracker) and more. That's probably the reason why a lot of end-user focused projects ("legacy win32 apps") keep sticking with SourceForge despite everything.
Re: The State of SourceForge Since Its Acquisition in January
#10They seem to be doing everything that was asked of them at the height of the sleazy days:
- They removed all bundled adware
- They scan the hosted packages for adware bundled by the developer and warn accordingly
- They removed deceptive download buttons
This is really very good news, and I'm willing to give them another shot. To quote from later in the Reddit thread:
It brought in quite a lot of revenue, but obviously that strategy is not sustainable and SourceForge was/would have been a sinking ship. The previous owners were a publicly traded large corporation and SourceForge was not a core part of their business. We are a lean web company with talented developers that has the ability to do things more efficiently. The site is monetized via advertising, but we believe it can be profitable and sustainable without throwing users and developers under the bus. At over a million unique visitors per day, we don't think we need to trick people into clicking on ads in order to turn a sustainable profit.
That had me nodding my head in understanding at "publicly traded corporation." I get it. I work for one. They will throw their workers, their customers, and their business into a meat grinder without batting an eyelash if it means being able to add a couple more cents to their shareholders' dividends.