While I don't really approve of the anti-sourceforge attitude, I do understand it; when SF had essentially a monopoly on open source project storage, they chose to milk it and rest on their laurels rather than improve themselves. People complained about how SF broke wget with their download portals for something like four years before SF did something about it. SF's forced review of every project creation (and their gigantic delay in doing so) had a strong chilling effect on open source project creation in general.
A lazy monopoly has a way of generating extreme hatred due to the impotent rage of the people that use it because they have no other option. SF may have drastically improved in the presence of competition, but it's no surprise that some people are still angry.
Github has almost single-handedly fixed things that SourceForge never, ever got around to doing, and they've done it in remarkably little time.
I used to dread going to any project that was hosted on SourceForge, hate it like going to the dentist for something to get drilled, and while it's a bit better, it's still an awful, uncomfortable experience. When I see a project hosted on SourceForge I only click the link with a heavy sigh.
Why do I "hate" SourceForge? It's because they got complacent, and because they never changed. It was like SourceForge was more important than you and you better not forget it. How many clicks was it to do something as simple as set up a new project? How many forms and emails do you need to fill out or reply to? How annoying was the distribution model, or how ugly was a project page? All these things were important but nobody cared.
That Github was able to turn around block and report so quickly is evidence that they get it, they're listening, and they aren't afraid to hustle and do what's right. Nothing is hard on Github. It is as easy as it should be. I gladly spend money on Github every month. Sourceforge couldn't pay me to use it.
Reminds me of Microsoft in the pre-Firefox, pre-Chrome days. It is extremely difficult for someone who has a virtual monopoly to innovate and listen to its users all the time. We can't just assume that it won't happen to X because X has something to do with open-source.
I really hope that the rise of GitHub and similar competitors provokes SourceForge to innovate again.
Sourceforge owes nobody anything. And we don't owe it anything either. So don't mind us if we don't help fix SF.
Github is as 'completely free' as sourceforge. Firefox is as 'completely free' as internet explorer. So yes, it does make sense to use 'completely free' and 'not good enough' in the same sentence.
Three years ago I attended an "open-source CEO" dinner, at which I was seated between the CEOs of SourceForge and CollabNet (founder and principal proponent of the Subversion VCS). I asked the CollabNet CEO what he thought about Git, and he was dismissive, indicating that Subversion had already won. I then asked the SourceForge CEO if he knew about GitHub; he was vaguely familiar with them, but appeared utterly unconcerned. I thought to myself, All the battles have been fought and lost, and these guys don't even know there's a war.
Not really surprised there. I've worked for both CEOs of SourceForge and Collabnet (the software that I worked with, SourceForge Enterprise Edition was purchased by CollabNet in 2007). CollabNet's CEO seems to think that Subversion will change the world [engineering's had a DVCS integration into SFEE (now teamforge) for the last two years, but product management wouldn't allow it to be included], and SourceForge is nothing more than a media company that's bootstrapped by thinkgeek.net.
The reason why GitHub has become so popular is due to the fact they put code and developers first. Surfing to a repo doesn't bring some overview or ads page.
Opening a repo actually show useful stuff for me as a developer. The source is there together with an optionally inlined README file, rendered with popular micro markups.
Then add the ease of forking and you clearly get something people really like.
This style of presentation isn't of course for everybody. But GitHub chose to target developers above end-users.
GitHub could have been "SVNHub" or "hghub" for all I care, the technology is secondary in this case (but close behind).
I agree with you that the technology is secondary, but one of the biggest things that I like about Github is that navigating through source files is always very fast.
I hate having to go to a source control site where it's not immediately obvious where to get to the source, or even worse, where it takes multiple seconds for a page to load.
With Github I can flip through all the source files to see what I'm looking for without having to bring the repo down locally. The same thing is also very useful to me when I want to remember how I did something in some project but don't have all my source with me. If navigating between files was slow or cumbersome, I don't think they'd be nearly as successful.
In a way, you're right. However GitHub's model is subscriptions fund the free yet small open repositories whereas SourceForge's model is advertisement (I can't find a way to on SF though).
So naturally, GitHub had to appeal for subscribers. While for SF, I always thought ads was stupid due to the educated demographic that would likely have adblock.
SourceForge is a business, not a charity project. If they were providing this service out of the kindness of their hearts, I'd absolutely agree that people should knock it off.
However, sourceforge is doing this to make money. What business owner with any common sense hears customers complaining about them and tells them it's rude? If customers complain about your service, you empathize with them and find out what you can do to improve.
Whatever respect for sourceforge I had just went away. You can't just ignore customer complaints because you're open source.
SourceForge is both a business and a project...the project was created because the people behind it wanted to build something for the Open Source community. They succeeded, and achieved remarkable things. If you weren't around the Open Source community ten or more years ago, you might be forgiven for not giving them their due credit. But, I was around, and I'm grateful for what SourceForge has provided, and still provides, the projects I've worked on over the years. If they got lost on the way to finding a workable business model, or if they failed to keep pace with the rapidly-changing Open Source landscape, that's certainly worth talking about...but heaping hate on people who've tried to do good things for the community for years is low and nasty and it's something I don't like to see.
Most of the people who use, and have used, SourceForge have never paid for the service. If someone hasn't paid for it, and hasn't contributed to it in any real way, I don't see how it's right for them to complain about it in an obnoxious way (angrily on twitter or reddit or whatever). Send a patch to fix the problem, submit a ticket, etc. But, spewing anger without having done anything to help just makes someone a cancer on the Open Source community. If you don't like SourceForge, don't use it. But, don't pile hate onto someone that's done good things and continues to do good things.
I absolutely understand where the SF folks are coming from. Sometimes, I feel this way, too. When you have a project with millions of users, there's going to be someone who can't help but heap hate and anger on you; it's human nature, I guess. In this case, though, it seems even worse...because folks are kicking SourceForge when they're already on the ground trying to figure out WTF to do to regain some of their old luster.
I'm pretty much certain they aren't talking about "customer complaints" here. I'm sure they don't mind that kind of thing; they've been dealing with it for over a decade. I'm pretty sure what they're talking about are the "SourceForge sucks!" type rants about how evil SourceForge is. And, on that count, they're right to be upset.
I was around. Look, giving away open source software might have been a big deal back then. It isn't now. Lots of companies release open source software, up to and including open sourcing their entire product.
The reality of the matter is that SourceForge is a dinosaur that needs to die. They may have once been great, but they aren't anymore.
Say what you will about the trolls, but they're right. And sourceforge has no one to blame but themselves.
Not to mention that it's our right to say whatever we want on our twitter stream, regardless of if we've paid for or tried to help the object of our complaints. Sourceforge doesn't owe me anything, nor do I owe them anything.
Look, giving away open source software might have been a big deal back then. It isn't now. Lots of companies release open source software, up to and including open sourcing their entire product.
That's not what I'm grateful to SourceForge for. I'm grateful for the terabytes of transfer they've provided my projects over the years. They've also effectively hosted mailing lists and websites that receive tremendous traffic. I have my doubts that github could handle all of those aspects of that kind of service, even now that they've grown up. I suspect they'd have a lot of the same growing pains SourceForge experienced.
The reality of the matter is that SourceForge is a dinosaur that needs to die.
Really? You have no concern at all for the thousands of projects that still rely on SourceForge infrastructure?
I don't think I'm ever going to be able to see eye to eye with you on this one.
Not to mention that it's our right to say whatever we want on our twitter stream, regardless of if we've paid for or tried to help the object of our complaints.
Yes, it's your right to say anything you want. But, bitching without doing anything positive makes you a drain on the community, rather than a help. Bitch all you want about problems; but unless you're helping solve them, I reserve the right to view you (very) negatively because of it.
I haven't posted anything bad about sourceforge, had missed the controversy they referred to. I totally agree with everything the author said (and thought she said it very well). However, I have to admit that when I saw the title of the article and the domain name (before I read the article) I could feel myself gearing up to get angry at sourceforge and defend github.
I can totally relate to people who root for one technology to win and trash another, because I totally root for technologies all the time. I get really annoyed when a "bad" technology comes out with a good feature I wish the technology I was rooting for had. Which is kind of insane when I think about it. This post was a good reminder about how irrational that rooting and fanboyism is. I will have to be more mindful of that stuff, because it really makes me blind sometimes.
I think it is only natural to have favorite technologies, whether it's an OS, editor, language, or even automobile brand. I think it is also fine to point out advantages of one solution over another because it helps others when they need to make a choice. I think all of this can be done in a rational manner without fanboyism.
I would like to see more rational discourse, not only in the realm of technology, but also in politics. It is seldom a question of A is awesome and B is crap. Often the comparisons are complex, and the right choice may have some dependence on circumstance. Or in the case of politics, party A may have a good position on some issues, and a bad position on others.
People have a tendency to choose a side and fight all-out for their side as right and all others as wrong. We used to do this with race or religion, and now we're doing it with other things. However, to successfully deal with the problems in our world, we need to rise above such simplistic thinking and realize that in our big complicated world, there is often a need for multiple approaches. And even if one alternative is truly superior to another, we have to realize that the superiority might not be clear to everyone, so we need to learn patience with those who may for whatever reason make the inferior choice. We also need to have the humility to admit that there might even be something we can learn from the other side.
I get really annoyed when a "bad" technology comes out with a good feature I wish the technology I was rooting for had. Which is kind of insane when I think about it.
It's not that insane if you think about long-term consequences. For example, a killer feature in a program that uses some crappy architecture makes that program more popular, which might make the crappy architecture more popular too.
While I agree the hate is unnecessary, calling out random Twitter users in a company blog post isn't very classy. It comes across as a petty attempt at revenge.
A note to all startups: this is not how you should respond to brand criticism. SF.net and GitHub are in competition, and a heartfelt blog post does not make your product better. Spend your time iterating, and make something that is actually better for your customers. GNOME didn't get to the point it's at today by saying "KDE is fine, but GNOME is open source too! Same team!"
I always smile a little bit when I see the force of creative destruction. Kudos to the guys at github who ignored the threat of google and built a business that is profitable and beating established incumbents.
I am sure the folks at sourceforge have their hearts in the right place, but a tarnished brand is a tarnished brand. They could launch a better product than github tomorrow, but I'll always have the frustration of trying to use wget on SF in the back of my mind.
Sourceforge had his time. As MySpace had his time, too. They where cool a few years ago and where the best thing that could happen to the internet, but we moved away from those for better solutions. Solutions that weren't possible without those sites. I am very thankfull that Sourceforge existed. I hosted my first projects there, too.
Good bye and please stop crying like a baby about the hate you are getting. You have two options: make your site as easy to use as github or continue dying. Crying publicly is none of those :) .
We're definitely in agreement at GitHub. This industry, like every other industry, isn't a zero-sum game; plenty of growth to be had for everyone. This is a nice post, and it's been fun seeing the stuff SF has been building in the last year or so in particular.
Honestly, I think that SourceForge used to be easier to use than it is now. When it had its old interface circa (2002-2005 ish) I could find the information and do the tasks I wanted to do. It is difficult for me to find /anything/ on SourceForge these days, when I am forced to use it at all.
SourceForge was (and perhaps is) a great place for open source. I don't think it was a "lazy monopoly" or even a "monopoly" at all. There were always alternatives. Always other places one could go to host code and share code. When it was the most popular site, it was the best site. Now it is simply not the best site. I am super productive on Github, and unless something 5x better comes along I don't think I will move off of Github.
There is definitely a social scene in geekdom now with its own zeitgeist that is independent of underlying intellectual factors. Using the terms from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, geeks used to inhabit just the intellectual plane (although like any gathering of people, there will be some social aspects to their behavior).
Nowadays, with so many self-promotion and socialization tools out there (and which capture so much of our attention), geekdom is as much a social phenomenon as an intellectual one.
Jesus, you can't make an intelligent reference here without some judgemental unread dufus voting you down. This isn't the first time--I've had enough of this HN.
Here's a reason for SourceForge hate. At least as of a couple weeks ago, when you go to download a file, you are shown a survey (as a sort of ad). There is no indication that the survey is optional, and initially I thought it was required. If you ignore the survey you can still download the file, and I was able to figure that out eventually. A less experienced user wouldn't be so lucky, thinking that the survey is required, thus revealing personal or business information that they shouldn't have to.
Yes, SourceForge sat on their "monopoly" and did not innovate. Yes, they got complacent. But they were so ahead of their time! If I remember correctly, SourceForge even used to offer a compiler farm so you could try to compile your library/program under different environments.
Their mistakes benefited to all new services and competitors. If GitHub had been the first to offer this kind of service, they may have committed some of SF mistakes.
Personally I don't get why there's so much negativity. I love GitHub just as much as the next guy, but I don't see why that makes SourceForge insignificant or irrelevant. Haters gonna hate, I guess :(
> Personally I don't get why there's so much negativity.
I'm guessing a significant portion of it comes from how terrible the SourceForge experience has been for a very, very long time (I don't know if it's changed, I haven't had to actually use sourceforge in a long time): insufferably slow, brain-dead logical layout of project pages, UI complexity, ...
The kind of feeling which comes from having to use a crappy tool for a long time does not go away easily.
Would tend to agree. This new generation of repo sites for the most part has learnt a lot of lessons about how to do things. In some ways, linking to individual tweets feels a bit like bitching at people - perhaps understandable, but not really doing anything but making them seem upset.
That makes total sense to me, and I agree with the "terrible experience" part. It does look like they've made some improvements though.
Regardless, SF has been around for a very long time, and one could at least appreciate that they're a pioneer site in open source forge hosting. The humility in the post is pretty evident, and serves as a friendly reminder that this doesn't need to be a competition.
As someone who used SF in the early 2000s, I can kind of understand the hate (but don't support it).
I remember daily offline CVS servers (yeah, I'm that old), unusable slow mailing lists (delays of several days per mail) and the awfully complicated and slow interface. I still can't believe how much slower it even got when SSL was activated.
And the interface is still awful, as is the one of Launchpad BTW.
Still, it was the only open source hosting back then. Many projects were hosted on university servers or even Geocities with no VCS access.
Clearly, without SF Open Source wouldn't be what it is today.
That said, please host your projects on GitHub or Bitbucket in this century. Thank you. ;)
Well said (and the same to the OP). I'm a big fan of GitHub, but there's no reason to line up SF with Bin Laden and Saddam - that seems a little OTT, even if the SF interface is clunky! [1]
There are some aspects that SF still do a lot better than the competition on. Nobody is even close to competing with the speed and breadth of their mirrors.
I've never hand bandwidth trouble with either github or google code. With SF I get an arcane 2001-Era dialog where I choose from 12 options that don't tell me anything - just imagine what this is like for an normal end user.
In any case, bandwith and storage cost falls faster than executable sizes grow, so in a few years this will be a non-issue for competitors even if you assume that it is an issue at the moment.
Edit: Githubs download expierience:
https://github.com/mirrors/linux-2.6, click on downloads in upper left corner, click 3.0-rc1, downloading 115mb and my bandwidth is saturated at 2MB/s.
I wonder why neither the original link nor this SF blog post mention BitBucket - I think they give a pretty good, GitHub-like experience, just with Mercurial. Both are definitely more pleasant to use than SF
You want code examples to learn, you want people to talk to as developers, etc search github..
SF is of the same banal cabal as java.net who make the mistake that they own the community. Github assumes that they must earn their role in the community..big effing difference!
A lazy monopoly has a way of generating extreme hatred due to the impotent rage of the people that use it because they have no other option. SF may have drastically improved in the presence of competition, but it's no surprise that some people are still angry.