VA Linux to Sell Proprietary Version of Sourceforge

Cassivs writes: "There's an article claiming that VA Linux is planning on selling a proprietary, closed-source version of SourceForge, SourceForge Enterprise Edition. See the letter to SourceForge members assuring them that VA Linux will continue to provide free hosting/etc. at SourceForge. They will also continue to maintain a GPL version of the code, SourceForge Open Edition." VA is Slashdot's corporate parent.

Comments

I saw them present this

[Eagle7]

Some reps from VA came by and gave a presentation at my company regarding this product about 2 months ago.

Its actually pretty neat - they'll set up your own internal sourceforge on servers in your organization. And while they are doing it, they'll customize it so that the backend works with all of your already establised CM and problem tracking tools.

The idea is that even if your company makes closed software, you can benefit from a structured way to share code within the company. They can even close off portions with restricted access, so that classified projects (I work for a defense contractor) will only be available to the developers working on it.

The product the and the services they bring with it are really amazing... if I was in charge of such things here, I'd switch over ASAP. I really hope they make a go with this.

Are they planning to sell buggy software ?

[chrysalis]

Sourceforge is a marvellous thing for developpers and it helps a lot the free software community.
However, Sourceforge is very buggy. Sometimes the CVS server refuses authentication. Sometimes, uploading new releases is impossible. Sometimes, I have to authenticate dozens of time. And it doesn't like Opera.
Maybe VA should fix Sourceforge before selling it.

Re:What good is it?

[GordonMcGregor]

My employer uses sourceforge internally.

We have approx 8000 designers/ software engineers/ admin and so can quite happily share code and jointly develop projects.

Re:And this trolling is brought to you by...

[chrisd]

I think you need to understand that once something is GPL'd, you can't un-gpl the released software. For instance, if for some reason the slash code has only been written by folks in VA, (assume no pathces for this argument), and we release version 2.2 under the gpl and from that moment on we never release again, slash is still available uinder the GPL. You can't un-gpl software.

I don't think that will ever happen, mind you. But if it did then fork it and do your own. In fact the same thing goes with SF. IF you want to write the interfaces to rational, pvcs , and open it up. Go for it. Have fun. This is part of what open source is all about.

Honestly, sometimes I think that 99% of open source software is the willingness to do the work. I don't want to sound blasphemous, but it's just software. Anyone can write software and release it. And , looking at some of the code (oss and proprietary) just about anyone has.

Chris DiBona

(speaking for VA)