SourceXChange Closes Doors

It's been coming in through the proverbial grapevine that SourceXChange has been closed by its' parent Collab.net. In the closed doors page they've got, Collab notes that they are focusing on a code development environment they've been working on - it's a lot like what SourceXChange was doing, but installing for people looking for collabrative development tools.

Comments

An alternative

[Tim Macinta]

It's unfortunate to see SourceXChange close its doors. I tried their site out a few months ago when I was looking for a contract and the concept looked like something I would be interested in, but there were only about two projects listed at the time.

A site with a similar idea is Cosource.com. The projects there tend to be a lot smaller in scope, but there are a lot more to choose from. Hopefully they won't end up in the same boat as SourceXChange.

Same old story

[Chris Siegler]

Great product, bad marketing. They had some 10 thousand developers signed up, open source and Linux all over the news, and a shortage of good programmers available to companies. All during a Tech boom that had companies scrambling for new ways to get work done. And yet they couldn't get enough projects.

At the start they had some interesting projects posted by HP. But after that available projects slowed nearly to a stop. The ones that did show up were from smaller companies that offered too little money, and even those were slim pickings.

It looks to me like they focused all their attention on the product and neglected the sales pitch to companies, who should have been eager participants. I don't think ``open source'' had anything to do with their failure.

What happens to the projects?

[David E. Smith]

There are a number of projects out there that use collab.net software, or are "powered by collab.net" (whatever that means), or so on. What will become of them?

The biggest one I can think of is OpenOffice, which has a little tiny "powered by collab.net" logo at the bottom of the front page. Since this one's on Sun's bankroll (more or less) it'll likely continue, but what about the rest of 'em?

Re:What happens to the projects?

[keri]

Nothing will happen to other Collab.Net projects. We're still out there working and succeeding in convincing alot of large organizations such as Sun, HP, Oracle, Motorola and Dresner that thinking in an open source way -- or at least a collaboarative development way -- is a the right way to go for their projects. We're still intimately involved with projects such as Openoffice.org, Netbeans.org, Openadaptor.org, OTNxchange.org and Possenet.org. And we haven't stepped back from our commitment to the open source world either, we're hosting CVSHOME.org, MozDev.org and developing new generation open source tools such as Subversion -- replacement for CVS and Scarab -- replacement to Bugzilla. We're many years from ending up on fuckedcompany -- and we'll be around to fight the good fight! Keri Carpenter Community Manager Employee #20 something Collab.Net

Good != Profit as Profit != Good

[rakjr]

Just because something is good does not mean it will make a profit, just as something that makes a profit is not automatically good (other than the money it may produce). Redhat may be the popular distro to demonize because they have their eyes ont the money, but until we live in a society that automatically pays for "good ideas", the bottom dollar is the driving force.Microsoft and other big players have shown time and time again that lots of money will almost always win out over a great product which is not properly marketed. Think about the IBM PC Jr. I owned one. It was a one of IBM's biggest mistakes, but because of !! AWESOME !! marketting, what looked to be a dooming failure turned a profit. PcTools is an example who started out of the gates like lightening with great marketting strategy, but later got wiped off the face of the earth by Norton's better marketting and Microsoft's money.Linux and the free software environment have proven that you can not easily kill free software that is freely maintained, but the simple truth is it does cost people their time to develop and maintain the software.Personally, I think it is great that RedHat can help push Linux farther along while making money selling training and support (assuming the latest lawsuit does not wax the company). I liked what SourceXChange was trying to do, but you can't fund a business on likes. Remember, programmers have to eat too (even if it is mostly, pizza, mex, chineese, or something from a vending machine).

sad to see

[iso]

this is really unfortunate. i followed SourceXchange (and collab.net) pretty closely when i lived in San Francisco as i was good friends with employee number six. ;) it was a great idea, and it's a shame to see it go. i guess it just didn't generate the kind of noise it needed to, and didn't get the right people's attention.

the SourceXchange concept was a good one, and i honestly think a lot of companies (and the open source community) could have really benefited from the service. it also could have really helped legitimize open-source software. i know there were other services like it (like the Free Software Bazaar), but i think SourceXchange was the most appealing to big companies.

i wish Collab.net the best of luck with SourceCast, but while it looks like an interesting project, it really doesn't look like it will benefit open-source software nearly as much as SourceXchange could have. oh well, c'est la vie.

- j