SourceForge Terms of Service Change, Users Unhappy

An email fluttering around a few mailing lists has been submitted in various forms here today. It's about changes to the SourceForge terms of service. Some relevant links unclude the old terms, new terms, old privacy statement, new privacy statement and contact for "questions or concerns" (Patrick McGovern, Site Director). Obviously since SF is owned by the same parent company as Slashdot, I'm biased and corrupt and you should ignore my opinions on the subject, but while I don't particularly like this any more then anyone else, I also don't think it's the huge deal that others are making of it. Especially considering projects aren't paying for the free service. You get what you pay for after all. I have attached a summary to this article of the changes that are being called into question if you don't want to do a mental diff on the links above.

This list was submitted by a few different users and was apparently originally posted to several mailing lists, although I don't know who actually originally wrote it. I just quote it here for reference.

1. They can henceforth change the terms without notice, just by posting the new terms on the website. (Currently they are obliged to give 15 days notice by email, a period that we are currently in for this change.)
2. They can henceforth remove user accounts without giving a reason. (Currently they are obliged to have a reason, though the set of acceptable reasons is open-ended.)
3. They're no longer obliged to make the contents of a deleted account available to its owner. (There was previously a "reasonable effort" clause to that effect.)
4. They're no longer obliged to provide notice of changes to the privacy policy, unless the changes are "substantive". (Currently they are obliged to provide notice of any change.)
5. The privacy policy is acquiring a disclaimer that amounts to "this is not true". It actually disclaims the entire privacy policy.

Comments

hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like they're trying to streamline the administration of the service so as to make it more attractive to a buyer... Wonder if they have any particular company in mind?

Sourceforge reality.

[Matt2000]

Anyone who's using Sourceforge to host their project, as I am, should be realistic about what they're getting and for how long they'll get it.

First of all, I love sourceforge. It gives me all of the things I want right out of the box and for free. User forums, bug tracking, SSH CVS, and so on.

However, it is free and I think we all know has a pretty slim chance of making money. With that in mind, no matter what their polcies state there seems to be a pretty good chance of them just exploding one fine morning and taking a whole bunch of source down with them. Make backups, I should too.

Other than that, we can be a demanding lot so try to go easy on these guys, let's give them a chance to survive.

What are the chances ...

[zangdesign]

of getting Sourceforge to kill off old, inactive projects? Seriously, the tree needs a little trimming. One has to wade through so many unmaintained alpha releases when trying to find a specific thing that it's easier to do a search on Google these days.

SF is a great resource and all, but there needs to be some way to filter out the abandoned stuff.

Re:Further proof...

[dasmegabyte]

And that's one of the problems with modern capitalism...in the odd case that you don't claim to know nothing and be irresponsible, you're inviting people to sue you. How many times have I heard in the same breath "X Co, Inc, is a huge, evil, corrupt institution with no care for its customers" and "let's sue them so we can have money?"

I run a very small (read: profits are almost half my car payment) web hosting service under the flag of openness and freedom of content. I started it because I got upset that every single host I went with wanted to corral me into a year contract, tell me what I couldn't do or say and take credit and the ability to edit my personal thoughts and ideas. Originally, it was a co-op, and I began to take on extra users who wanted the same thing -- ownership of their work and a fair charge for the low bandwidth they were moving.

In the past three months we've grown a dozen times larger -- so big that I no longer know every site op by name. Now, I don't want to have to force the new people to sign a TOS or a EULA. I think that posting the rules on the frontpage should be good enough for everybody. But I'm afraid. We've had a couple users ask if they could serve porn, and when I said no a few signed up anyway. I trust them (and check my logs), but if I go away on vacation and one of them starts serving nude shots of Frankie Muniz, I'm the one who gets in trouble. I'm the one who's got his name on the tax forms, and I don't intend to incorporate the business.

So I'm stuck. I want to let users do their own thing, own their own shit, but I'm the one who's ass is on the line. If one site slips up, they all go down. Everybody loses their stuff and all the good I've tried to do, all the bright young folks I've formed relationships with are scrambling for a new host. Someday soon I'll need to call my lawyer (okay, I don't have a lawyer to call my own, I'll have to pick a name out of the phone book) and have him draw me up a plan for a TOS. It'll probably be pretty brutal. Legally, I'll have to claim responsibility or ownership over users and content so I'll have the ability to pull it if I have to. And I'll have to do the same stupid shit, bowing to C&Ds and dropping user info and so forth.

It won't make me as a host and as a person any more of an asshole. I won't trade email addresses for cigarettes or claim rights to rkm's work. But I'll look just as corporate and uncaring as the rest.

Just think about it, baby, before you hate the legalese. You can't avoid being screwed without screwing somebody on paper. At the end of the day, it all comes down to who you trust, and after these long years with Slashdot, OSDN and SourceForge, I guess I trust VA. I have to, they designed my new server!

Shameless plug: webslum.net. Say you read this post and I'll give you a free shell :)