SourceForge Drifting

Zocalo sent us a story running at FSF Europe talking about SourceForge's Drifting. Talks about the fact that they are releasing a closed-source version of the code commercially and various copyright related things. Obviously VA owns both SF and Slashdot so I'm skewed, but my personal opinion is that VA is doing what they need to do to make a buck while still providing the SourceForge.net website to the Open Source community. And I think their decision to sell a closed-source proprietary version of the code would be hypocritical, except that they aren't a 100% open-source company any more. And *that* is the part that makes me the most sad.

Comments

Misinformation Correction

[Hemos]

I would like to point out that despite what's said in the drifting piece - Sourceforge.net does run on Free software. Sourceforge 3.0 Enterprise Edition has non-free components to it, the major part being the access into Oracle.

Re:Misinformation Correction

[geomcbay]

for them to survivie they have to thread carefully nowdays

It is always good to thread carefully! Otherwise you might run into deadlocks or other problems.

Re:Misinformation Correction

[dark_panda]

If this is the case, then why does SourceForge have a job listing on their jobs page asking for a DBA that can "oversee and deploy the transition from Postgres to Oracle"? The listing also mentions "[keeping] the databases functional for the 200,000 users that use the site on a day-to-day basis." Why would a new version of SourceForge, which they are apparently selling as standalone software, already have 200,000 users? The job listing is specifically listed as "SourceForge.net Database Administrator", not "Sourceforge 3.0 Enterprise Edition DBA/Developer" or whatever.

Doesn't this indicate at least in some way that they're planning on ditching PostgreSQL for (gasp) non-free software?

The exact listing can be seen at http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?doci d=7438&group_id=1#dba.

This stuff was brought up on the PostgreSQL lists. I'm hoping Tim Perdue will chime in, as he apparently frequents the lists.

J

Re:Misinformation Correction

[bigdisk]

I decided to let go of the wreckage called VA Linux about 2 1/2 months ago, so I'm not involved.

The switch to closed-source and Oracle is a result of the... shall we say... lack of success in the sales department while the open source code was available.

Re:Misinformation Correction

[Micah]

> while the open source code was available.

Is it really *supposed* to be gone!!?

I just downloaded SF 2.5 last week because a client wants a site based on it. I look at the project page now and for the last few days there have been no files there!

Glad I got it when I did!

Re:Misinformation Correction

[iomud]

Quick someone go register open-sourceforge.org.

what about slashdot?

[drDugan]

It doesn't appear Slashdot has much to do with the open source community lately either. If it really makes you sad, consider what blather makes headline on Slashdot. I don't mean this as a troll. I'm honestly disappointed over the last few months about drift on Slashdot too.

Doh

[Anonymous Coward]

Step 1: Start an open-source based company
Step 3: Profit!

Apparently Step 2 is "completely change the business model of this corporation so that it may actually make money."
Bitter pill to swallow, but giving away IP just doesn't work.

Re:Doh

[poiuyt23]

It can work - just that there needs to be something else on the side. Red Hat sells support. Apple sells the GUI on top of Darwin. The most succesful endevors in the IT world have had both open and closed source components. Any idelolgy carried to the extreme breaks down eventually.

Re:Doh

[TheRealSlimShady]

Just that the something else on the side has to be massively profitable. Like incredibly proprietary hardware (see IBM). In fact, you could argue that the something on the side is your open source code, and you use that to drive your core (proprietary) business (again see IBM).

most succesful endevors in the IT world have had both open and closed source components

For example who? Microsoft would be the most successful, they don't have a lot of open source...

Re:Doh

[FatRatBastard]

but giving away IP just doesn't work.

That depends on the definition of work. If by work you mean "make a profitable company who's sole business is selling open software" then you have a point.

But considering Linus et al (not to mention the Apache folks along with the Samba team, etc) have been giving away IP from day one and their software is still being used, I'd say that by that definition it works.

My take: you make $$$ off of Free Software when its one of the tools in your arsenal, a'la IBM.

Re:Doh

[armb]

> Many forget how immensely wealthy IBM is still

Yep, revenue over 3 times Microsoft's.

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY01/q401 .h tm
"Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $25.30 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2001"

http://www.ibm.com/investor/data/irdacf.phtml
"Annual Results: Revenue (in millions): 2000 Year End: $88,396"

But why?

[easter1916]

And I think their decision to sell a closed-source proprietary version of the code would be hypocritical, except that they aren't a 100% open-source company any more. And *that* is the part that makes me the most sad.

I really don't understand what all the fuss is about. Surely it makes sense that they adaprt to changing conditions in order to survive, whilst trying to remain as true to their original goals as possible? This is just pragmatism, nothing to be emotional about. It is, after all, just business.

Re:But why?

[FortKnox]

I agree, but that is the problem with most Open Source advocates. In -practice-, the open source model doesn't generate enough profit. However, a few tweaks (which VA is trying), may end up a better model in the long run. VA is trying to show the Open Source community how to be successful in the economy. RMS might not be 100% behind it, but this is how it has to be.

I kinda like the new model, where it is free for the community, but costs money if you use the version for large companies (which are more likely to pay than the average user). I think it may be successful. Proving this model to zealots will be a problem, though ;-)

Re:But why?

[linuxlover]

Righto.

It makes me sick to hear all those 'open source' fanatics cringe & boo at a company trying to make some cash. Lets face it no one starts companies to make humankind better. It is all about the money.

Open Source originated from people working on 'side' projects aside from their 'job'. You know a job that sends you a paycheck that helps pay your bills and morgage. So most of the open source people were/are working on some proprietary company full time. Just because some lucky ones are paid to work in open source (Larry Wall comes to mind & GNU core people) doesn't mean everyone should make everything open and free.

Am I against open source? hell no. I love it. I use it everyday. I even contributed something back (nothing significant like Linux kernel, but tiny stuff). But at the same time, I understand economics 101. People have to earn a living (I am not talking about filthy rich here, just enough to make a decent living).

So get over this 'ooooh evil proprietary' mentality and thank them for their contributions. I for one am glad SourceForge exists. I have 2 projects hosted there.

Sorry, just had to get it out of the system.

LinuxLover

Re:But why?

[Uruk]

In-house development in large companies can often run into dozens or even hundreds of projects. Aside from the complexity of individually managing all of those, centrally locating all projects to have one interface, one set of tools, and one locus of control could be seen as very positive in a lot of organizations. Also, whenever large-scale software development is going on, most of the disparate pieces are really quite related. For example, when developing evolution, they developed loads of libraries that did specific things. Sure, they were written to be generic, but their source trees, release schedules, build frameworks and so on were still built to be related to the original project.

For example, there isn't a GNOME CVS. You can't check out the source code for GNOME. You check out the source code for about 50 different projects, all of which put together make up GNOME.

All of this is kind of silly though. Let's let VA worry about how to market their own stuff. IANABA (I am not a business analyst) and my guess is that 99.99999% of the people on this site aren't either. Leave that guessing for the bean counters. Far more interesting in this story are the implications for free software. The FSF has a lot of good points that they raised in their article, most of which are being wholly ignored by the threads here today.

Any Contingency Plans in the Works?

[Carnage4Life]

Considering that no one is exactly sure if VA can make it as a business selling proprietary extensions to Source Forge has anyone thought about what will happen to Freshmeat and Source Forge if (or is it when) VA goes under?

I know that a couple of projects have started mirroring their Source Forge content in case anything happens but are there any credible replacements being worked in case both these extremely useful sites lose their their parent company? Specifically are there any sites that are viable replacements to either Freshmeat or SourceForge? Currently we have multiple Linux distros so the death of one, two or more companies in that area would be sad but not devastating on the other hand the dissappearance of VA considering how much of a central repository for Open Source apps SourceForge and Freshmeat have become would be devastating.

Re:Any Contingency Plans in the Works?

[HiThere]

I would prefer a network of sites that hosted a couple of hundred projects each, and had a crosslinked indexing system.

An interesting alternative might be something based on the music distribution software. But does that require that there are enough people interested in the unpopular and new projects? I don't play in that sandbox, so I don't know. How hard is it to find an infrequently asked for title?

Sunsite was the old standby. ftp is basic, but not the same thing. (And that does require central sites.)

The basic flaw is centralization. Sourceforge by being a central point, became a weakness. Any replacement should try to avoid that flaw.

Just fork it!

[sterno]

If people out there take serious issue with Source Forge's turn to the proprietary, then take the last release of open source code and start your own Source Forge. I mean isn't that supposed to be one of the magical things about open source, that folks who want to go proprietary cannot because the community will hijack it.

Of course if you want to set up your own Source fFrge you have to have the money to run all of the servers, bandwidth, etc. Don't have the cash? Well I guess that's what Source Forge was running into as well.

Personally I think that Source Forge being open source itself was cool but rather secondary to the fact that source forge provides a great place for people to collaborate on projects. If they have to close the source to make it financially feasible to continue to provide the service, so be it. Which would be worse for the community: Source Forge running on proprietary software or Source Forge shutting down?

Unless the FSF is going to fund an open alternative to Source Forge they should get off their high horse.

Re:Just fork it!

[big.ears]

Unless the FSF is going to fund an open alternative to Source Forge they should get off their high horse.

As stated in the article, Savannah is such an alternative supported by thy FSF.

Re:Just fork it!

[tmark]

Personally I think that Source Forge being open source itself was cool but rather secondary to the fact that source forge provides a great place for people to collaborate on projects.

I think that it the acquiescence of one of Open Source's flagship companies to the realities of business that people are distressed about. After all the talk, it becomes harder and harder for people who want to argue that "Open Source software can work" to do so when their most prominent exemplars cannot seem to make it work. So we begin to see rationalizations like "I don't care if this Open Source site runs non-Open Source software" that try to jibe reality with an ill-fitting philosophy.

Make no mistake, if an Open Source site like Source Forge runs on proprietary software (which I don't think it does, anyways), or if an Open Source company resorts to Closed-Source business practices, that represents a HUGE P.R. blow to Open Source's credibility. If Open Source isn't good enough for its own advocates, just who would it be good for ? Just think about how foolish Microsoft looked running Hotmail on FreeBSD; think about how silly RedHat or Slashdot would look if they had to run on NT/IIS; think about how bad Stallman would look if he released a commercial and closed-source Emacs.

Re:Just fork it!

[geomcbay]

If people out there take serious issue with Source Forge's turn to the proprietary, then take the last release of open source code and start your own Source Forge. I mean isn't that supposed to be one of the magical things about open source, that folks who want to go proprietary cannot because the community will hijack it.


Everyone is focusing on the closing of the SourceForge source. I believe the bigger issue in the article (doesn't seem like many people bothered to read it) is that VA was engaging in some rather questionable activity in terms of trying to get people who assumed their SF contributions would remain Free to assign copyright over to them without being forthcoming about the reasons. It sure sounds sleazy to me.

Other issues are that SourceForge seems to be taking steps to make it more difficult to migrate your project off of their server. Who wants to deal with such lock-in, even if the company has previously been a friend of Open Source?


Unless the FSF is going to fund an open alternative to Source Forge they should get off their high horse.

I guess you didn't read the article before ranting? Otherwise you'd have seen the part where they mention Savannah.

Time to face facts, VA is a sinking ship. Its not a matter of if but when. They aren't making any money and who would fund them in this climate?

I do acknowledge that VA has done some good for the OSS community, but everyone with projects on SourceForge should really be working on a backup plan if they aren't already. No sense hoping the situation will go away.

Re:Just fork it!

[HeUnique]

The problem is - that I didn't see what bandwidth do they have? what if tommorow someone posts a story with a link to the next great open-source application and all slashdot readers and their dogs are going to download it? what then? I won't be able to even browse a simple CVS tree on projects there...

FSF concerned about GPL stuff

[hobbs]

Note that the FSF, which does like all things free, is more concerned about the possible GNU GPL violations that might be occuring, and "appropriation" of contributors' work. While I'm not an GPL-junkie, this does seem to be a valid point from the FSF, with SF walking a thin, grey line.

Re:FSF concerned about GPL stuff

[Uruk]

I don't think they're concerned about possible violations, I think that sourceforge and VA are going to do everything in a very straightforward, legal way.

What they're worried about is what sourceforge can talk people into doing. Like signing over their rights to code. There isn't any GPL violation if an author wants to sign his code over to someone else, but all the same it's a loss for free software. They're also worried about the fact that sourceforge seems to have hooked people on a particular development methodology, (and a GOOD one at that) but that now since they're drifting away from free software, they may bring developers with them.

I think that the FSF's concerns are totally valid. I think it's really odd that most of the other posters in this discussion haven't even examined the software angle, and more importantly the freedom angle - they're more interested in speculating on VA's *business model*. Since when did all of the hackers that used to read slashdot morph into business students? (And poor ones at that)

Hey, tough tootsies

[joshamania]

I'd love for VA to make available a usable enterprise version of Sourceforge...and is seems they finally have. I want to put one of these boxen up in my own outfit, but doing so with the free version of sf would have taken more time than my development project. Since we have a budget, I'll be more than happy to support VA and purchase SFEE when our project load gets high enough to justify the expenditure.

I just wish they'd lose the Oracle bit...I just can't see the need.

Re:LNUX

[Hemos]

atrow - read the report. That's a declared loss. That's not cash. That's writing off the Andover.net acquisition, amongst other things that don't nvolved real money. Check out Nortel - 19 billion dollar write off.

Re:LNUX

[tim_maroney]

I'm having a hard time reconciling the Yahoo page with the Annual Report from October 19. The Yahoo financials report a non-recurring charge of $230,092,000 exactly in each of the four quarters. I believe this is an error. The annual loss is only $525,268,000 on $134,890,000 in revenues, whereas a quarterly loss of the size given would make for almost double that loss.

It does not appear that VA has any reason to expect continuing non-recurring expenses in the quarter-billion range per quarter. It appears that they have already paid their non-recurring expenses for goodwill from unfortunate acquisitions and from reorganization.

What's happening to SourceForge is more interesting in how it bears on the overall health of the open source and free software movement. Rather than repeating myself, I'd like to refer to this post, which suggests that we may be looking at a world where free software is relatively crippled compared to proprietary versions of the same software.

Tim

Can development work without centralization?

[sterno]

That's a very interesting idea. I'm just wondering how well development efforts can work without keeping the project somewhat centralized. Imagine for a moment a world where the Linux kernel doesn't have Linux and thousands of people are all releasing their own little patches to the code in a thousand different places. Seems like total chaos.

I do a lot of development using tools like CVS and even with a small team you can occasionally have problems with people forgetting to check in and causing conflicts. A massive web of people all working on their own tangents would turn that into utter chaos.

Seems like maybe the secret is some sort of very robust diff and dependancy tracking tool. If each patch could keep track of what patches it is dependant on, then when trying to apply a patch, it could inform you of dependancies it has an automatically get those patches. Of course I don't think this scales too well. If each patch has to keep track of patches it is dependent on then over time the patch files turn into huge lists of dependancies followed by a snippet of code.

I like the concept but I don't know if it's feasible...

Re:Can development work without centralization?

[aozilla]

Imagine for a moment a world where the Linux kernel doesn't have Linux and thousands of people are all releasing their own little patches to the code in a thousand different places. Seems like total chaos.

The idea was that the checkin would have to be signed by the maintainer in order to be considered part of the official release. Likewise there would be a master key for the release itself, which would sign the keys of the maintainers of the individual files. You could start your own fork, with your own maintainers (or make yourself maintainer), but that would be a completely separate project.

Actually, a neat add-on feature could be that you could start your own fork, but leave the current maintainers for most of the code, and only put yourself as maintainer of your changes. Then you'd get automatic updates of most of the code, and as long as there weren't cross-file conflicts you wouldn't have to do any MFCing. But, that part I haven't really thought of all that much.

Of course I don't think this scales too well. If each patch has to keep track of patches it is dependent on then over time the patch files turn into huge lists of dependancies followed by a snippet of code.

It's funny you should mention that, because that is exactly how an unnamed company I used to work for managed their (binary) patch system. As a result, the patches would merge whenever files were changed in multiple patches, and the whole program would pretty much merge into a huge patch within a number of months. At which point we released a new version and started all over again.

I like the concept but I don't know if it's feasible...

I think the trick is to have a lot of "supernodes", sites with relatively high bandwidth and relatively static connections. Maybe you'd even need some kind of meta-super-nodes, with completely static connections (but not necessarily too high of bandwidth), to point you to those supernodes.

I think it could be done, but I personally don't have the time right now to do it (unless someone feel's like paying me at least $30K/year :))

LNUX financials

[Software]

Good points, Hemos, and it is important to note that write-down of goodwill is a noncash expenditure and basically irrelevant to the current financial situation.

However, the overall picture is still grim. Looking at the cash flow from operating activities (minus 19M) and the current assets-current liabilities (97M - 33M) of 64M means about 3 quarters more before LNUX runs out of cash, assuming that the company gets no more financing. These are not numbers to warm a skeptic's heart. I like Slashdot/SF/etc as much as the next guy, but I'd update my resume if I were you.

cost of SF deployment...

[Mister G]

People I work with have been in contact with VA regarding deployment of SF Enterprise Edition...

The cost comes out to ~ $300K/year for 900 users... Not very economical, expecially considering I have an 80% functional install running off of the last (GPL'd) release - v2.61

my $.02

Idealists

[forgoil]

The open source utopia reminds me of "Das Kapital" by Karl Marx. It resultet in Communism, which is a great way of life, if it was at all possible. It's about everyone being happy and sharing (open source). But we know how North Korea is doing, do you remember Sovjet and Cuba? It's just as bad as depotism or the French monrachies before the revolution.

What you have to ask yourself if you would accept open source/communism ideas in your daily life. Do you want to slave 12 hours a day and have the same living standard as someone who is just playing around all day (I rather play all day myself, but nobody is paying me for that)? Think about it some, what is the purpose of free software really?

I think it's a good thing that vA can make some money, they need it, we all need more companies that makes money and gives us jobs and thus feeds us (most of us are involved, or will get involved, in the software business). As long as they give proper support and doesn't stop anyone else from doing a similar system.

Does this mean I hate all free software? Hell no, not at all. I love to see people doing all this work, having fun (the only reason to do something for free), sharing. It's great stuff, and to all who does that, my deepest thanks. If others can make buisiness out of your work it helps us all in these sad times. I just wish that those companies could be nice and send the authors a little gift or two.

I also don't have anything against closed source, as long as they give good support. A lot of very specialist software would never be made unless it was paid for. In some cases it would be no sense in keeping the source closed, in others it would be essential to survive as a business, both are needed.

So what is the bottom line? Jump down from your high horses and write lotsa software instead, do what it takes to make what you want, and make money in any way you can (but be nice) and have fun. Let the best software prevail, try new business models, never stop evolving. If one close sourced project can fund another open source project, isn't that a good thing?

Why get so worked up?

[zoomba]

Reading the FSF article, and then many of the responses here on Slashdot, I can only say that I think many of you are over-reacting. VA has provided the Open Source community with a wonderful and FREE resouce to use... no strings attached... no clauses saying in order to use the service you sign over your first-born child (or worse... your source code).

We often sit here on our high-horses looking down our noses at non-free software... but think about it for a second. With the exception of RedHat, how many companies based on open-source software have managed to be profitable? I know I haven't really heard of any. You can not make money off of software you give away... you need to provide some additional service or product that you can't just get off the net for the cost of several hours of downloading.

Free is all well-and-good... and it works for people doing smaller projects on their free time, where they're not expending millions of dollars on development, equipment, network maintenance, high speed connections and all the other expenses a company like VA has.

I support the free software movement and community... I think it's a great effort and may someday prove to be viable economically, but in today's market it really doesn't work.

If close-sourcing SF and selling it commercially is one of the things VA has to do to make some money to continue to provide us with the resources we take for granted (OSDN, Slashdot, Freshmeat, ThinkGeek etc...), then I say let them do it. Still got a bee up your bonnett? Then take the 2.5 code and refine it and deploy your own system for project management. Don't attack a company for doing what it needs to do to stay alive.

-Z

VA, not SF in trouble

[prototype]

I would say that VA has it's problems. Like any .bomb company in the last 5 years, they grew too big and too fast for their own good. The bean counters sit down and take a look at what they have and realize that a site like SF hosting almost 30,000 projects and supporting almost 300,000 users isn't making any money. Really? Wow. What a revelation.

Good for them to fork a version of their system and build a corporate version and good for them to those that purchase it. However, I doubt that even that is going to help their bottom line much. While the service is something useful for a collaboration based methodology in the corporate environment, it'll be a hard sell to companies that are already hooked into high priced alternatives like LiveLink, etc.

What I am concerned about is that SF (and perhaps /.?) might be affected by the VA fallout. Let's face it, they hurting in the financial area and I'm sure that's not helping morale. I doubt they're sitting in board rooms saying "We'll support open source even if it kills us". No. If the boat begins to sink, the first thing to pull is SF. I mean, how much bandwidth and server space can it be taking up?

I am concerned as a developer because I host a half dozen or so projects on SF and to see them vanish would be a little devastating. My advice for anyone who uses them, mirror your projects and don't subscribe to the "all your eggs in one basket" theory.

liB

Sourceforge has yet to compete with Bugzilla

[TeknoDragon]

After visitng linuxworld and drilling their sales reps we came to the conclusion that Sourceforge can't compete with free alternatives. (by 'we' I mean the software Co. I'm working for)

Bugzilla/bonsai/tinderbox provides a more complete solution. We were even able to modify the trio to deal with java, our many different build scripts (make is rather lacking for java), and our test automation.
What we found was that Sourceforge provided discussion groups which we got using exchange or INND, bug tracking which wasn't nearly as feature rich as bugzilla, and cvs integration which bonsai provided just as well. It was still lacking the automated builds, and by the time they got back to us after linuxworld we had allready deployed the bugzilla solution (partly thanks to some nice debian packages put together by Remi Perrot).

One large drawback is that bonsai relies on glimpse as its fulltext indexer. Glimpse used to be free but since then has gone commercial. We were, however, able to find some old glimpse source (which may have been GPL or artistic license - perhaps we should redistribute the old code as GNUlimpse).
We have made our own tweaks to bugzilla/tinderbox/bonsai and contributed a few of them back to the mozilla developers (in the future probably all will be recycled into the public implementation).

The Big Deal

[Reality Master 101]

I see some posts from people who are basically asking, "What's the big deal? They're just doing what they need to survive."

The fuss is that for the last few years ESR et al has been CathedralBazaaring (if you'll pardon my verbization) this idea that Open Source software actually makes MORE economic sense than closed source software, because you get the benefits of the "community". Source Forge has basically rejected this idea, and said "screw this ivory tower theory, it's not working and we need to make money".

I'm not ready to declare the experiments a total failure. I believe Stronghold does pretty well with their commercial version of Apache (not sure though), and IBM is certainly putting a lot of effort toward open source. Of course, IBM is hoping to sell hardware, so it's not quite the same.

In fact, ESR has been pretty quiet lately. Considering he was a board member of VA, has he put out any opinions on this move to closed source? Has he resigned from the board?

From the Site Director of SourceForge.net

[PMcGovern]

My name is Patrick McGovern and I manage SourceForge.net. I wanted
to take a moment to address the issues that Loic raised in his
recent article.

As a background: SourceForge.net is a website within the
Open Source Developers Network (OSDN), owned by VA Linux Systems.
SourceForge.net provides free hosting for Open Source software
development projects via its web site at http://sourceforge.net
and http://sf.net

SourceForge.net, OSDN and VA Linux systems are committed to the
Open Source community. Two years ago (almost to the day)
SourceForge.net was started to provide a way for Open Source
developers to collaborate with each other and make great software.
This mission has not changed. Today VA spends a tremendous amount
of money and resources to provide excellent service to 30,000 projects.

Loic brings up a number of points that are simply not accurate.

* SourceForge (not SourceForge.net) is a collaborative software
development platform. The SourceForge software originated as the
foundation of the SourceForge.net service, and is now the basis of
a number of products offered by VA Linux Systems. SourceForge
Enterprise Edition is the commercial product released by
VA Linux Systems last week. SourceForge is a software platform.

* SourceForge.net is a service provided freely to Open Source
software development projects. SourceForge.net is not running
the SourceForge Enterprise Edition software. SourceForge.net is
a web site, which provides a service to the Open Source community.

* SourceForge.net provides free hosting for Open Source Software
development projects. SourceForge.net is not now, or nor has it
ever been, exclusive to free software -- we accept hosting requests
from projects licensed under any OSI-approved Open Source License,
and projects whose licenses have not been directly approved,
but comply with the OSI Open Source Definition.

* Data Export: The ability to export data from SourceForge.net
has not changed. There is no conspiracy to 'lock projects in'
to SourceForge.net. Every project has the ability to download
a nightly tarball of their CVS code. If people have any concerns
about their code, we recommend they set up a cron job to download
the latest version. Eight months ago we did have a XML API that
allowed project admins to download bug report data. The API broke
earlier in the year when we enhanced the SF.NET code (version 2.5)
to include the tracker (a tool that unifies all 'ticket-related'
systems). Until recently, we didn't receive a lot of interest from
the community to re-introduce the feature... so we have been focusing
on other aspects of the site. We are now re-examining the issue.
In the mean time, there are third-party programs which will collect
the content directly from the site and extract that data.

* Mailing Lists: One area we concentrating on, which Loic alludes to,
is mailing list archives. This, historically, has been one of the
weakest areas of SourceForge.net. We are currently working on a new
solution, which directly integrates the mailing lists with
SourceForge.net, as opposed to Geocrawler. We have just entered the
initial beta phase for this project. It is still being worked on,
but you can see it here in action:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=27464 (look at the last
four forums). We are essentially using the SourceForge Forum code;
the same code base that has been available to the community for
some time.

--

Developers are choosing SourceForge.net because of the excellent
resources and service we give the community. The site is currently
growing at over 60 new projects and 700 developers a day. We just
added new personnel and purchased 70 new servers to make sure we
retain our excellent quality of service. We have added new download
servers to make sure the community can get Source code as fast
as possible. We have been adding additional hardware to
the compile farm. (OS X systems were added last month).

Finally, SourceForge.net is a free service. It's a service I believe
greatly enhances the Open Source Developer's ability to write and
release great software; and have it seen by a lot of people. If you
feel that SourceForge.net is not for you, that is okay too. There are
alternatives out there, and it's better to host your code where you
think you will be the most productive.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to write me:
pat at sourceforge.net

Thank you,

Pat-

Patrick McGovern
email: Pat at SourceForge.net
Director, SourceForge.net

Re:From the Site Director of SourceForge.net

[j7953]

* SourceForge.net is a service provided freely to Open Source software development projects. SourceForge.net is not running the SourceForge Enterprise Edition software. SourceForge.net is a web site, which provides a service to the Open Source community.

So it's a service, not a software. That's interesting, because it implies that VA won't make its source code available, as a service doesn't have any source code. It is based on a software, but you didn't say that you'll continue to make its source code available as free software.

So I assume that the SourceForge software will become proprietary. Correct me if I'm wrong.

* SourceForge.net provides free hosting for Open Source Software development projects. SourceForge.net is not now, or nor has it ever been, exclusive to free software -- we accept hosting requests from projects licensed under any OSI-approved Open Source License, and projects whose licenses have not been directly approved, but comply with the OSI Open Source Definition.

Read the FSF website some day -- free software does not refer to GPL only, it's basically a different term for open source (with some philosophical differences). E.g. the BSD license is an open source license as well as a free software license, but it is not "copyleft." I guess about 40% of the projects hosted by SF are free software, or open source, whichever term you prefer. (The other 60% are status 1, planning.)

Developers are choosing SourceForge.net because of the excellent resources and service we give the community.

The more interesting question is, will they continue to do so?

I would pay for Sourceforge!

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

As a developer who depends on Sourceforge on a daily basis, I'm far more concerned with whether or not VA will be able to continue to support Sourceforge in the future, and I care far less whether all of the software used to create Sourceforge is open-source.

29,000 projects are currently being hosted on Sourceforge. Okay, a lot of those are vaporware, but I think it's fair to say that there are at least a thousand interesting and valuable projects there. It would be a huge loss to the open-source community if all of these projects were suddenly homeless.

Sourceforge has done more to increase the sense of community among open-source developers than any other site. Whenever I want to find out if someone is developing source code that does something I want, where do I turn first - Freshmeat? Nope, Sourceforge, because it's so convenient and standardized. I know how to navigate Sourceforge quickly to download the latest release, browse the CVS archives, or check their bug reports - whereas all non-SF projects have these things in very different places, if at all (how many other projects have a working CVSWeb up and running - not many!). Hosting a project on Sourceforge makes it convenient for developers to examine what you're doing and join in, which is what makes open-source work.

I never would have joined if Sourceforge was not free, but if it came down to paying a subscription (in order to host a project there) or letting Sourceforge die, I would pay for it in a second. If they have to do this, it would be nice if they set up a system for micropayments - so grateful users could easily donate a couple of bucks to keep their favorite projects on Sourceforge.

Also...

[chrisd]

I've commented on this at Advogato, as I work for Slashdot as an author and work for OSDN, I didn't think it would be appropriate for me to post on /. about this issue, I'll leave that to Hemos and Patrick. So I put it on advogato. Check it out there.

Chris DiBona

Pointy hair bosses?

[anshil]

I'm running a SF hosted projected for nearly a year now, and I can say that tech support has largely dropped the last months. I'm waiting already since june to be able to create my projectname-cvs mailling list, I've already downloaded their PHP source and pointed them at the bug line... no success :( However one cannot really complain about a free service.

But after all it's still fantastic, a free web server, a CVS server, mailling lists, forums, bug trackers, with CRON jobs! Additionally it's the only free service I know of that allows me to upload and execute CGI scripts on their servers. Even if setting this all up at your home machine with a (very week) permanent connection would take you weeks. Beside I like to turn of my machine in the night because of the noise. Not to mention what a dedicated server would cost, then free programming is suddendly an expensive hobby.

From my past experience in industry one somehow smells struggling demises. How the hell should the change in the name to Source.NET bring anything? just anything? This just reminds me of dilberts pointy-hair bosses.

financial pressures

[Proud Geek]

I'm not the first to mention it, but this bears repeating: this isn't a sign of VA * abandoning their ideals; they are doing the best under the circumstances. It's really a sign of them struggling for their lives in a hostile environment.

The recently posted their quarterly income statement, and my analysis is that it looks very bad. They posted a net profit of negative $290 million. Most of that is imaginary money, so let's look at the rest of the figures to get an idea what is actually going on.

To project the long term viability of the company, we will look at the burn rate, and try to extend that against their short term assets, accounting for any factors that will change their revenues or expenses.

The balance sheet shows that their current assets continue to drop. Particularly disturbing is the continued drop in cash and equivalents and short term investments. These have gone down by about $17 million, indicating that as their burn rate. Inventory has also decreased, presumably as they sell off what remains from their hardware business. This provides a revenue stream that has basically finished this quarter. Since the $8 million drop there is about half of the total revenue, we can expect revenue next quarter to be about half of what it was this quarter.

Long term assets are also dropping. Reductions in long term capital are likely due to exiting the hardware business and getting rid of associated facilities. They are also writing off huge amounts of goodwill and intangibles. Neither of these is important, since the money was already spent and does not affect their long term viability. The only thing to note is that the poor economy now means that the money spent acquiring these assets is not giving much of a return, and they would have been better just sticking it in the bank.

Although their liabilities are increasing, they do not explain why, categorizing the increase as "other liabilities". We can't factor this into any calculations directly.

It appears that the current burn rate is $17 million per quarter, against reserves of about $97 million. With revenues expected to fall to half of the $16 million they are now once the remaining hardware inventory is sold, we expect the burn rate to increase to $25 million. At this rate we can expect the company to survive four quarters, just one year.

In that time frame, there really isn't anything that we can expect to make them viable. Revenues from SourceForge On Site will likely ramp up, but that will be a slow process that can not offset much of the projected loss. Further, aggressive cost cutting measures will reduce the burn rate, but it is unlikely they can cut it enough to survive long, particularly with the conflicting goal of building the SourceForge brand and ramping development and sales.

I really don't see a future for VA. Look for them to sell off unprofitable assets (likely including Slashdot, unless the changes Rob discussed can make it profitable). Developers with projects on SourceForge should make offsite backups just in case they remove it suddenly and don't give developers sufficient time to withdraw their code. Think also what the rush on the site will be when they announce its closing and everybody tries to checkout their projects at the same time.

Re:There are alternatives... besides proprietary

[zulux]

The parent post is a shill for Microsoft. Freedomtoinnovate.net had a booth at the Microsoft shareholder meeting. Basicly, Distributedcopyright.org is just Microsoft's Shared-Source(TM) painted with a bit of gloss. I don't think Microsoft is actually serious about Shared-Source(TM), they just want to distract free-software developers. And as Balmer says, it's all about the Developers,Developers,Developers.

The Reality Of How VA Views SourceForge

[Bowie J. Poag]

The following post isn't meant to be a flame. I'm just sharing what I knew to be true about my own experiences with VA regarding System 12, the embryonic form of what later became SourceForge. Hell, we even came up with the name "SourceForge" back in May of '99..

To quote from the article:

Finally, VA Linux[1] has become rather underhanded in their attempts to grasp exclusive control of contributors' work.


What sold VA on our idea, originally, was that the company was ultimately going to be in a position to assert a great amount of influence over the design of people's apps in the end. In the months prior to System 12's inception, I was asked by Trae McCombs to provide what amounted to a "proposal" he could hand to the people calling the shots, to justify setting up a box for us and others on the team to work with. The details of that proposal went something like this:

System 12 was going to offer "components"... Nice bits and pieces of graphics, sounds, and code that could be fused into pre-existing Linux apps, and perhaps more importantly, used to build new ones from scratch. The idea was to make the Linux developer community dependant upon System 12. Originally, the primary benefit of this was that all Linux apps would have had a similar behavior and appearance, and i'm sure we'd all agree that such a thing was good--But later, a more interesting benefit emerged, in that we (as System 12) and VA, as our parent, would be able to dictate how people were to develop their apps by controlling the components these apps relied upon. We didn't want to view the project that way -- Asserting control was a secondary benefit. VA viewed it as a primary benefit.

Needless to say, Management at VA apparently liked the idea. They liked it enough to set up a dual P3/500 with 50GB of space on it, sitting on a wide open T1. An enormous machine by 1999 standards.

Essentially, VA would have been able to express their desires as a company via your apps. To this day, VA views SourceForge as a tool to advance the interests of the company. Suppose your code relied upon a component provided by System 12. At any point, VA could alter the structure of that component so as to make your code behave nicely with VA-produced software (ala Internet Explorer & Word), or more amusingly, run a banner ad at the bottom of your apps. This was our idea, and its the idea we sold VA on. System 12, the base predecessor to SourceForge, was designed to exert a measure of control over the direction of Linux application development, SO AS TO BENEFIT THE COMPANY. We wanted to become powerful enough as a central development resource that VA would have some interest in hiring us on as permanent employees versus community volunteers. That never happened. We got shoved off the map before we knew what hit us.

Rather than letting us continue development, they essentially co-opted us, and put pre-existing VA employees on the task of developing the idea. "Grow the garden to attract the bunnies, then lock the gate to the garden and sell rabbit meat." The gate got locked a month or so ago when VA announced they're moving SourceForge into proprietary waters.. Soon, (if not already) VA will trying to co-opt those who participated in the garden. I tried to warn you guys, but nobody listened. I got called insane instead, for suggesting VA had something other than purely altruistic motives. I used to be just as big a flag waver as you when it came to VA, but I learned my lesson fairly early on in the game. I'm afraid the rest of you are just now getting a taste of the same lesson we learned.

To milk the community for the gain of the company was part of the plan from Day 1, folks.

You would be VERY wise to move your project and your work off of SourceForge as soon as possible.

Re:The Reality Of How VA Views SourceForge

[Bowie J. Poag]

Hi Mandolin,

The basic thoery was that in exchange for developers incorporating our components into their apps, we would then offer them space on the server to continue development. All the resources, speed and bandwidth they desired. Forgot to mention that when I wrote about how big the server was that VA gave us at the groundbreaking.

Essentially, thats all SourceForge is, in its current form. System 12 minus components, and lack of developmental control over the community as a result.

You wrote:

"Lastly, it disturbs me to see you pointing fingers at a for-profit company for scheming, when you make it sound as though many of said schemes came from you."

Thats correct, I do share in the blame partly. But you have to understand the climate within the community at the time; VA was precieved to be a friendly, charitable entity. By presenting them with an idea such as "you'll be able to guide the direction Linux application developers will take", we would have never guessed that VA would have taken hold of that and used it in a way that was detrimental to the community. It was so far out of question that we never even thought about it happening at the time.

I remember late in the summer of '99, I was home visiting my parents, and hung out in the garage with my Dad for a while. He had some concerns that I was putting alot of faith in VA to do what was right for everyone, and might be setting myself up for an enormous crash..That there is no such thing as a truly generous, thoughtful company. (Interestingly enough, he's 68 years old and is well-acquainted with the OSS movement..heh) It ruffled my feathers for my dad to call VA's integrity into question, in light of all that I had been provided with and participated within... We argued back and forth for a good half hour about how "VA would never do that, Dad. That would be suicidal in terms of public image.", and Dad kept coming back to the same line.."What IF!" ..."Suppose things get worse for the company, son.. Suppose someone else starts calling the shots. You cant anticipate those things.."... And around and around we went. I defended VA, and Dad tried to keep my head out of the clouds.

Well, turns out Dad was right in the end. I was totally unprepared for what VA did to my group, and the post-mortem of events yeilds a picture of VA that I would have never believed to be true in a million years.

The span of 1998-2000 was an absolute lightspeed mindfuck, in my world....Just pure turmoil. The most i'd ever seen in my entire life. I dont think you need me to tell you how crazy those times were. It takes a tornado to get our heads stuck in our collective asses, and the whole Linux movement was a BIG one as far as tornadoes go.

As for VA...I'm glad people are finally beginning to realize that the Linux community would be a far better place without them. This article does a nice job of sealing it up.

Re:VA Linux Systems and Bowie J. Poag

[chrisd]

You must be new. Themes had problems but it had nothing to do with Bowie or his ridiculous threats. You can download his tiles at the classic.themes.org site still. Bowie wanted us to pull the tiles, but since they were under the gpl, we kept them up there.

Also, Bowie's original idea was for a widget repository, and frankly, we never stopped him from doing it. SF and the sf name came from other places than from Trae and Bowie (I regisetered the domain name). Bowie is under the mistaken impression that only Bowie can have an idea. IF you do a search on bowie and I in slashdot you'll see how long he's been asserting things that simply aren't true. Also, It was called system12 . He has a new project which also probably won't produce anything called system26 or whatever.

Mr Poag did not have access enough to t.o to destroy it, we took down the propaganda specific stuff ourselves and dropped his tiles into the resources set.

Chris DiBona

What kinds of sense?

[Chris Johnson]

It's true that ESR puts things in an economic framework, and as such the question being asked first is "does this make economic sense?", but Free software doesn't come primarily from economics-based origins. It comes from control-based origins, and is more about power relationships than it is about money relationships.

As such, it's perfectly valid and reasonable to say "this open source stuff isn't allowing me to compete in this capitalistic market!" The context would be something like SourceForge, since for industries less about software authoring, the "open source stuff" can still be a way to cut costs and own outright the means of data processing instead of renting it (say, from Microsoft.)

However, the problem comes when people don't even think to ask any of the other questions: foremost, I think, would be

Is this capitalistic market itself imposing power relationships on me that aren't to my interest?

THAT is the relevant question. Look at the big picture... look at the types of power relationships that exist among vendors, users, developers... it may be that Open Source never does make a sensible business model, but in a world where 'sensible business models' amount to serious power inequities between players and a Darwinian reduction of industries to only the most aggressive, restrictive players, is a business model really the thing to want? If that is the game (and with Microsoft being found repeatedly totally guilty of power abuses and wrist-slapped cautiously, I suggest it is), is it even proper to consider only how best to play that one particular game?

Microsoft knows what it's dealing with when it makes Open Source and the GPL in particular, public enemy number one. These are not effective economic weapons- they are effective specifically at breaking the hold a restrictive vendor exerts on its victims/developers/customers. If you can have ownership of your own software you can't be armtwisted- you are immune from power abuses.

This is in a context of business, again, and power abusers have the most effective business model IF most people are subject to their power. People using open source or developing it may never, ever have comparable economic power or competitive business models- but they can wield a 'spoiler' effect, allowing others to bail out of the proprietary sphere if it's getting too restrictive for them. This is what threatens Microsoft, not some notion that Red Hat will end up with a billion dollar war chest.

And it is right for this sort of thing to frighten power abusers- because it is in fact antithetical to their primary business model. If they were just selling service and quality and working hard it'd be another story- but the winning strategy has been to twist power relationships for all they're worth, and that is precisely what is threatened.

How does all this apply to VA and SourceForge?

Well- they have a choice, though it may be already made for them. They can go the one way- keeping open, and losing in the marketplace but enabling a wide spectrum of 'spoiler' projects that keep proprietary software in check. Otherwise each project will have to maintain its own web presence at its own expense, as I do (Mastering Tools). Or, they can roll the other direction, increasingly twisting power relationships to compete in the marketplace on the marketplace's own terms (even if those are set by hardcore libertarian ideology and best illustrated by Microsoft). If they do that, though, Free software itself is a threat to them, because it destabilises power relationships and makes it possible to avoid lock-in.

It sounds like they're doing the latter. Pity- I guess they felt they had to grow grow grow, to compete in the marketplace and maintain stock valuation. Unfortunately, for them to take this approach is antithetical to free software itself, so I would say they are fucked.

Re:What kinds of sense?

[Reality Master 101]

Is this capitalistic market itself imposing power relationships on me that aren't to my interest?

I think that question is where people like you and RMS go wrong. You make the assumption that people don't factor that in, and you are wrong. It's not phrased that way, but it's basically the same question as "does the licensing agreement provide the benefits compared to the cost, and compared to other solutions?"

What is also very telling is your use of "foremost" with respect to this question. I understand that to RMS and perhaps you this is a foremost question, but it is NOT the foremost question to most people, and it shouldn't be. Here's the foremost question: What is the best solution to my problem that maximizes benefit versus cost? The fact that a product might have "freedom" as a benefit is valuable in some cases, and worthless is others.

Personally, I use Linux as a server for one of my web sites. It made sense, because of the relatively low cost and availability of software. On the other hand, I am typing this on a Win2K system using pretty much all proprietary software, like Exceed, Office, etc. I use them because they are the best software for my needs, and the cost to me is well worth the benefit. The fact that I don't have source code for Exceed or Office is totally irrelevent to me.

I guess my point is that if you and the OSS community are waiting for the masses to "wake up" to the advantages of "freedom", you will have a long wait. On the other hand, if the OSS community produces software that is at least equivalent to the proprietary solutions, then they will get somewhere.

So far, we see OSS playing catch-up in almost all software categories, except a notable few. Is this just a question of time, or is it intrinsic to OSS? I don't know for sure, but it's entirely possible that it's intrinsic to OSS. Usually the way an OSS project happens is that some programmers sees a proprietary program that they like, and decide to implement a "poor man's" version of it. People add to it, until it becomes relatively usable. In other words, innovation generally takes place in the proprietary sector. So far, this has been the story of almost every OSS project. It will be interesting to see if it continues.

Re:What kinds of sense?

[Malcontent]

What open source does is to provide 80% of the functionality at 0% of the cost. This is a powerful force and will force commercial companies to make their product better and that's a good thing for everybody. Eventually just about any open source product will be "good enough" and free and at that point the cost benefit analysis will favor the open source project.

Of course MS knows this and is now trying new ways to lock in customers so that they can't switch. they are very good at this will succeed. They will also attack open source software developers with legal action and civil suits if the customers decide they don't like being locked in but it might not come to that.

What get's lost in this conversation is that there is only room for MS and open source. Everybody else will either be crushed by MS or crushed by Open source. It's only a matter of time. the days of making money off of selling software are gone only MS will make money selling software.

Here's a #2

[Metrol]

Step 1: Start an open-source based company
Step 3: Profit!

Okay, how about doing this in true open source fashion from them folks. Just an idea, probably won't ever happen.

First off, what Sourceforge has today is a unique combination of services that nobody else I know of has. Sure you can buy web hosting and even FTP serving pretty cheap, but not with full cvs, bug tracking, and built in message boards. Certainly they also have the mind share out there as the place to host an open source project. For all the downsides, this should be a powerful combination.

In my mind, they should do everything they can to keep the tools used on that site open source. At the same time, they should be charging a nominal fee to those folks wishing to host their project there. Heck, it wouldn't have to be much. Figure it like this....

29,275 projects now hosted
$10/month for each project
$5/month additional for mailing list
$1/month for each person authorized to commit code to a project

Let's figure that they only retain 2/3'rds of the accounts in doing this. Of these, let's say about 1/3 add in some features of some sort. The mailing list thing was simply an example.

19,321 projects left
6,376 add in about $7 in features

$193,210 in hosting charges
$44,632 in feature charges
$237,842 total billable each month

$2,854,104 billable annually

This in my mind is a win win for everyone. Sourceforge charges a very reasonable fee for services, and they can show the project off as a profit center, all the while selling their proprietary version on the side. The dead projects that have long since lost developer interest vanish, or are picked up by someone else. Heck, if a project is truly interesting now we'd have a way to get non-developers involved by helping fund their hosting!

At this point though, Sourceforge is probably thinking that if they even charge a fee as low as $10/month they'd lose all the perty market share. I disagree, if for the unique services they provide alone. In order for this to play, those services and bandwidth need to keep themselves to very high standards.

I just know someone is going to find something wrong with my math :)

Re:Ironic

[m2]

On Sunday I saw a news item on SF regarding a transition to Oracle. Yesterday it was gone. How convinient. You'll be hard-pressed to find source code for SourceForge on SourceForge. For *any* part of it. Not long ago you could visit SF's project page and browse the CVS. It's now gone and all file releases have been wiped out. The excuse up to this point has been that there are proprietary extensions and source for those isn't available. Ok, where's the rest then? This looks bad. Back when ESR came up defending VA's position I was skeptic (read my diary). Now I'm convinced VA's going the wrong way. I'm moving my code out of SF and I'll feel uncomfortable contributing to projects hosted on SF.