Slashdot Mirror

Some useful stuff: An anonymous reader noted that AltaVista has opened Raging.Com which is a super fast minimal search engine without all that bloated portal crap. gi_wrighty noted that the winneers of the 5k HTML Contest have Been announced. Impressive minimalism. Soeren Staun-Pedersen noted that a new The Gimp User Group has come along. j1mmy pointed us to pictures of the new Lara Croft Model from E3. Yaruar sent us a story about Lego Filmsets that come with cameras for you do-it-yourselfers. If you don't want to make your own films, how about your own Mars Polar Lander Site? (Thanks Biff Studly). antiwesley sent us interesting insight into a typical geek cube. Speaking of things found in geek Cubes, BenTheDewpendent sent us a page that tracks tons of info on Mountain Dew and bob_jordan found pictures of upcoming Futurama Bender Action Figures (Not as cool as Nate's Picolo tho) Baloo Ursidae sent us a story about electricity generating shoes. Gorphrim sent us some Duron Parodies Finally some Slashdot references: DrFun (one of the original net comics) mentioned us in a recent strip, Someone noted that Geek Culture is selling First Post T-Shirts. QuasEye noted that someone registered hotgrits.org and ironically enough, is running Slashcode. And the WashPost ran an article on us which is mostly accurate. And to wrap things up, maxxon showed us the way to Crank Dot Net, which has stuff on all sorts of conspiracy theories and urban myths and other crazy stuffs on the net. Stuff like UFOs, the face on mars, Creationism, Scientology, antigravity, and perpetual motion and more.

I've attached a rather feisty rant from an anonymous coward criticizing the SourceForge project for releasing a tarball, but failing to be much of an open source project. 'Course since it took me a year between Slashcode releases, I'm a tad more forgiving on the subject, but the guy makes a lot of good points.

An anonymous reader writes: "I've observed the development of the SourceForge software and documentation during the past four months and I'm amazed to see that it's developped in a closed fashion, opposite to all of the open source ecology standards.

About the only thing related to open source is the publication of a tarball containing the php scripts used to run sourceforge. It has been published in a as-is fashion, no packaging effort was made. The only documentation included was apparently provided by volunteers and is outdated since it refers to the previous version. This documentation only covers a small part of the software.

There is no CVS tree for the project, not even read-only. Given the fact that three months elapsed between the last releases, there is no way contributors can do a proper job. At the same time VA Linux evangelists attend conferences repeating the golden rule of open source colaborative development: release often.

The only way for contributors to participate to the SourceForge development effort is to submit patches using the patch manager. The SourceForge guys will then decide if it should be integrated or not. Well, this could work if they were careful. But the situation is pathetic : patches sit in the queue during weeks and some of them even don't have a followup. It does not matter much anyway since there has been only nine patches since the beginning.

The SourceForge site documentation shows another remarkable mistake. It is maintained by volunteers. It's far more accurate and complete than the default site documentation but is not easily accessed. When clicking on the Site Documentation link it first shows the outdated documentation and a link to the volunteers work is only included at the bottom of the page. This is a minor issue. Much more annoying is what apparently occurred last week. All the volunteer work was trashed and replaced by a new system without notice. The volunteers protested but the SourceForge staff didn't care to reply ( the thread). The guy who did the mistake didn't even care to commit his changes to the CVS tree of the documentation project. The CVS tree does not match the content of the documentation anymore.

Behaving this way, the SourceForge staff does a big mistake. First it frustrates potential contributors, second it does not allow them to scale well. It's pretty obvious that they are completly overloaded with work and that they really need help.

What kind of conclusion can we draw ? The worst would be that the SourceForge staff is a bunch of talented programmers who do not believe in open source, even though they provide tools to help its development. The best would be that they need the open source community to kick their ass to go back in the path :-)

I sincerly hope that SlashDot will publish this bit. But VA Linux now owns Slashdot and may be immune to this kind of news ... "

CT:Technically VA Linux doesn't own Slashdot. Andover.Net does: the deal hasn't closed yet. And nobody is immune to 'nuthin, however I have slightly different opinions: releasing and maintaining a good open source package is hard and time consuming, as I learned firsthand with Slashcode. The vast majority of users don't contribute back (unless you count complaining). Don't get me wrong, I obviously love open-source development, but when the bitchers get to a critical mass, those who can actually add something positive get drowned out, get bored, and do other things.

It wasn't until Andover.Net came along and hired Pudge and Patg that it became feasible to bring Slashcode to a solid 1.0 release. Now, for the ultimate irony: Slashdot itself is a release behind the latest code ... at least for another 48 hours or so. For the year between the 0.3-0.4 tarballs, and the 0.9-1.0 Slashcode tarballs, I committed virtually every sin listed up there. My point is that its hard to maintain open source packages. Especially when the negative comments outweigh the patches fixing the problems, and on top of that, you have another job (like running a Web site for example ;) It's often a case of the best of intentions being bogged down in the most mundane of details.

Of course, since I obviously am simply a mouthpiece for various corporate entities my opinions are irrelevant and discardable, have a nice day ;)

I've attached a rather feisty rant from an anonymous coward criticizing the SourceForge project for releasing a tarball, but failing to be much of an open source project. 'Course since it took me a year between Slashcode releases, I'm a tad more forgiving on the subject, but the guy makes a lot of good points.

An anonymous reader writes: "I've observed the development of the SourceForge software and documentation during the past four months and I'm amazed to see that it's developped in a closed fashion, opposite to all of the open source ecology standards.

About the only thing related to open source is the publication of a tarball containing the php scripts used to run sourceforge. It has been published in a as-is fashion, no packaging effort was made. The only documentation included was apparently provided by volunteers and is outdated since it refers to the previous version. This documentation only covers a small part of the software.

There is no CVS tree for the project, not even read-only. Given the fact that three months elapsed between the last releases, there is no way contributors can do a proper job. At the same time VA Linux evangelists attend conferences repeating the golden rule of open source colaborative development: release often.

The only way for contributors to participate to the SourceForge development effort is to submit patches using the patch manager. The SourceForge guys will then decide if it should be integrated or not. Well, this could work if they were careful. But the situation is pathetic : patches sit in the queue during weeks and some of them even don't have a followup. It does not matter much anyway since there has been only nine patches since the beginning.

The SourceForge site documentation shows another remarkable mistake. It is maintained by volunteers. It's far more accurate and complete than the default site documentation but is not easily accessed. When clicking on the Site Documentation link it first shows the outdated documentation and a link to the volunteers work is only included at the bottom of the page. This is a minor issue. Much more annoying is what apparently occurred last week. All the volunteer work was trashed and replaced by a new system without notice. The volunteers protested but the SourceForge staff didn't care to reply ( the thread). The guy who did the mistake didn't even care to commit his changes to the CVS tree of the documentation project. The CVS tree does not match the content of the documentation anymore.

Behaving this way, the SourceForge staff does a big mistake. First it frustrates potential contributors, second it does not allow them to scale well. It's pretty obvious that they are completly overloaded with work and that they really need help.

What kind of conclusion can we draw ? The worst would be that the SourceForge staff is a bunch of talented programmers who do not believe in open source, even though they provide tools to help its development. The best would be that they need the open source community to kick their ass to go back in the path :-)

I sincerly hope that SlashDot will publish this bit. But VA Linux now owns Slashdot and may be immune to this kind of news ... "

CT:Technically VA Linux doesn't own Slashdot. Andover.Net does: the deal hasn't closed yet. And nobody is immune to 'nuthin, however I have slightly different opinions: releasing and maintaining a good open source package is hard and time consuming, as I learned firsthand with Slashcode. The vast majority of users don't contribute back (unless you count complaining). Don't get me wrong, I obviously love open-source development, but when the bitchers get to a critical mass, those who can actually add something positive get drowned out, get bored, and do other things.

It wasn't until Andover.Net came along and hired Pudge and Patg that it became feasible to bring Slashcode to a solid 1.0 release. Now, for the ultimate irony: Slashdot itself is a release behind the latest code ... at least for another 48 hours or so. For the year between the 0.3-0.4 tarballs, and the 0.9-1.0 Slashcode tarballs, I committed virtually every sin listed up there. My point is that its hard to maintain open source packages. Especially when the negative comments outweigh the patches fixing the problems, and on top of that, you have another job (like running a Web site for example ;) It's often a case of the best of intentions being bogged down in the most mundane of details.

Of course, since I obviously am simply a mouthpiece for various corporate entities my opinions are irrelevant and discardable, have a nice day ;)

Patrick and Chris have been working their kung fu overtime for some time now to clean up Slashcode and release a version one point oh. Its available on Slashcode: if you're interested in setting up your own slashdotesque weblog and are up on mod_perl and apache, you'll enjoy it. With 1.0 out, its time to once again start hammering on new features including wireless device support. I hacked in quickie WAP device support, so if your phone handles it, give it a whirl. Avantgo will be coming soon as well, along with many design improvements that will drastically improve performance (thank god!) and simplify administration, and allow usage on a variety of SQL servers.

I've attached an interesting rant below. It comes from Larry Marso and talks about the trends of content moving off USENET and onto Web sites like Slashdot. Usenet sort of automatically grants the right to distribute, but the Web isn't necessarily like that. (As a side note, among the many features planned for Slashcode is an NNTP gateway, which will hopefully address this problem, as well as allow people to use it to read Slashdot ;) Larry Marso writes "The trend of Linux-related discussion and development moving off USENET and mailing lists and on to Web Site "forum" facilities is disturbing. It is bad for the open source movement and the future of Linux. VA Sourceforge is a case in point.

Internet users who "post" articles using USENET or mailing lists are inherently granting third parties the right to repackage and retransmit their words into various formats. For example, Deja and Remarq take the legal position that they have the right to rate, sort, emphasize and discard USENET posted content, and retransmit what they consider "best", without obtaining any license or permission from the authors of the content. Seems perfectly reasonable, even to their legal departments and investors!

So long as Linux related discussions take place in such open forums, third parties have wide latitude to do the same, potentially adding a lot of value -- identifying highly relevent and instructive postings, questions asked and answered, tips for new users, a record of new ideas and suggestions and more. Enter a site like VA Sourceforge. True, they are providing all sorts of value added services. An open source project conducted there has certain advantages. The general discussion forums there too, may be useful. However, in each case, the participants are asked (in the legal "terms and conditions") to grant the Web site permission to use the forum content, but no permission is requested or accepted on behalf of third parties.

The bottom of every page says "Forum comments are owned by the poster. The rest is copyright VA Linux Systems." Remember that the GPL may apply to code, but it's irrelevent to talk. If I see an insightful discussion taking place on the Web site, or in the site's archives months after the fact, I can't take it, package it, sort or filter it, and retransmit this in another form or medium. Not unless I go back and obtain permission and a license from *each and every participant* in the discussions in question. So, in an important sense, VA is taking ownership of the content; no one else will be able practically to get the rights to reproduce, recycle and extend the content. Open source, but "closed talk".

Is there a solution? Yes. A quick and direct solution would be for a site like VA Sourceforge to permit users to obtain any and all contributed content an automated mailing list facility. Just asking users who are posting content for the right to retransmit, if done properly, could move us back to the status quo ante. However, I suspect they won't, because they want the site traffic. There is potentially a lesson here for Slashdot as well. I suspect that I can't take what's posted at Slashdot and retransmit what I might consider "best" like I could, for example, with the Linux kernel mailing list, can I? This whole trend toward Web site forums and facilities is leaving significant, valuable intellectual property rights in the hands of companies valued in the billions of U.S. dollars, and rendering it uneconomical for others of us to get the rights ourselves. Potentially, this is denying the Linux community valuable future resources.

To provide copies of useful information I'd seen at these sites, I'd practically have to construct an elaborate Auctionwatch or Bidders Edge system, and point people to links at VA Sourceforge or Slashdot. (And then what, will the sites respond with lawsuits like eBay?) Until these sites establish new policies of collecting intellectual property rights for the whole community, instead of just for themselves, some of the most exciting and important content in this "new era" for Linux is no longer open to all -- certainly not the way we all mean when we say "open". "

I'm not planning on announcing each and every release of Slash here, but there were several pretty significant problems in the v0.9 release of Slash (mostly the fact that my e-mail was hardcoded in one spot so I'm getting status report e-mail from dozens of new Slashlings as they pop up). Please Upgrade! Details about the release, and future announcements will mostly be posted at Slashcode.com, so if you're using the code or just interested, bookmark it. Second is the matter of Server51. We had a little miscommunication over here and let the cat out of the bag on this when we released Slash v0.9: S51 is Freshmeat's new open source hosting site. It's still very alpha, and only hosting a few projects, but since it's already getting a fair amount of curious visitors, feel free to poke around and send suggestions... it'll be ready for mass consumption "when it's finished" of course ;)