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FSF Migrating From Savannah to Gforge

bluestrain writes "It's been almost 4 months since Savannah was hacked. The site is still not completely functional, no new projects have been accepted since December 2003. Now it seems that the FSF is abandoning Savannah in favor of Gforge. RMS himself has confirmed the plans. A few developers are questioning the change. Hopefully the dust will settle and savannah can start accepting projects again."

17 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. good news! by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Interesting
    No offense to the OSDN/Slashdot guys, but sourceforge has started to suck dick lately. Constant downtime, searches that don't work, CVS running a week late, and now PBS-style appeals for money on the front page.

    If you just need a good (and free) public CVS server, what other options are there besides sf and gforge?

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    1. Re:good news! by Queuetue · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Lately? I groan every time I see a project is hosted at sf - it means 20-minute mailing list searches, regular downtime, and the whole download-roulette game where you try to deal with the klunky interface and find a not-completely-dead mirror.

    2. Re:good news! by FreeLinux · · Score: 5, Interesting

      but sourceforge has started to suck dick lately.

      I hadn't heard about this new feature. It could be rather interesting. But SourceForge has been having too many problems for too long. It seems as though no one is maintaining it, they simply disable a feature when it breaks. Additionally, I have always been concerned about having so many projects and information sites in a single OSDN basket. One never knows what the future holds for OSDN.

  2. I can understand that. by ideatrack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is probably uneducated on the matter, but I can understand why they want to move.

    Frankly 4 months is way too long for the site to be "not completely functional" and it can't help but make you doubt the quality of the administration of the site if there weren't sufficient provisions in place for this eventuality. Any website is a target so any webadmin should have a plan in place.

    When there are seemingly more secure options out there, more reliable anyway, then you'd go with them. Being faithful is one thing, but you can only do that for so long.

  3. Gforge is very specialized. by Electrawn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Gforge may be great for high traffic sites like Savanaah, but for low traffic 1-10 project sites I use Xoops+MyXoopsForge or Novell Forge. I think Savanahh made a good choice here, but they are stuck once they port. Novell Forge is the other choice.

    GForge uses some highly optimized transaction stuff and database functions inside postgres that probably should be in the PHP layer.

    Reminds me to port MyXoopsForge to postnuke to take advantage of ADODB! Compatibility or speed?

    -Electrawn

  4. Re:RMSs history on security by winkydink · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Seems like Stallman has lost sight of his roots!

    or he's starting to show signs of being realistic.

    --

    "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

  5. Re:RMS in hospital? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    He's got FLU/Linux

  6. Richard Stallman in hospital by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let everyone hope that Richard Stallman gets well soon.

  7. Re:RMS in hospital? by Original+AIDS+Monkey · · Score: 5, Funny

    Every few months, the cops come get him and force him to take a sponge bath, it's not big deal.

    --


    =======
    P.S. Bite! You've been bitten by the Original AIDS Monkey! You have AIDS now!
  8. VA is pimping SourceForge as tool for outsourcing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting



    Go look for yourself. VA is pimping SourceForge off as a tool to help companies ship jobs overseas. They don't even hide the fact.

    Have a look for yourself: VA Software

  9. Re:gforge slashdotted? by jared_hanson · · Score: 5, Informative

    GForge doesn't actually host projects (besides its own). It is simply a software package used to maintain and coordinate development efforts. If/when the FSF switches to GForge, it will be up to them to provide the resources necessary to handle the large amounts of traffic and projects. That responsibility does not fall on GForge.

    --
    -- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
  10. Re:For Benefit of Lazy Bastards... by Electrawn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sourceforge, also code named Alexandria. Original concept of a public development and collaboration for Open Source Projects. Last code base available was about 2000 before VA took the project Closed source for commercial purposes.

    Savannah: Fork of Alexandria code for GNU projects. I evaluated it but it was too kludgy to understand.

    GForge: Fork of Alexandria code by former Sourceforge developer. Rips out foundries and is for optimized PHP and Postgresql and Apache. Patches for Oracle in beta, refuses mysql patches.

    Novell Forge: Fork of XoopsForge that uses LDAP and Novell directory server. Needs Xoops 2.0 to run.

    XoopsForge: Fork of Alexandria that runs as a module in Xoops. Not much Dev activity, most dev in Novell Forge.

    MyXoopsForge: Fork of XoopsForge that has some active development. Used for forge.xoops.org

    The only thing that may compete in the same space that is somewhat similar is PHPGroupWare.

    -Electrawn

  11. About gna.org by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Many of the previous savannah contributors have already moved to gna.org, which is sometimes referred to as savannah's successor.
    I have already moved all my projects to gna a month ago. Gna is way more stable and way faster than savannah. I love it.

  12. Free Rider Problem; Tragedy of the Commons by David+Hume · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, why dont you invest lots of money like SourceForge into servers and making it as good as it can be, I mean being over-loaded with people such as you who then complain that its starting to suck, well ofcourse it is and if its a problem you should help those good people out and donate resources to them.


    I understand your point. I too don't like it when somebody complains about a good or service that is provided free or at below cost.

    However, the post to which you are responding may also have a point. The free rider problem and the tragedy of the commons (or, perhaps more precisely, tragedy of the net-commons) are inherent and endemic problems with Open Source software and projects.

    Let's face it, Open Source projects are classically Marxist -- i.e., To each according to their needs, from each according to their ability. I'm not saying that to red-bait. On the contrary, I think it is kind of nice. :) However, it does require certain assumptions regarding human nature -- e.g., that people will act from good will, not be "lazy" (or place a different value on leisure), not freeload, etc.

    Which I guess is my way of saying that, given these problems, I'm always surprised when people are surprised when an Open Source or Free Software project is over-burdenend and/or under-supported.

  13. Re:There are some pretty big sites running GForge. by NightSpots · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's unfortunate, because the code is insecure as hell.

    For instance, 'source.php' lets you view the source of files, but only if 'sys_view_source' (a global) is set in the config.

    Of course, they don't check to see HOW it is set, but rather, allow you to pass it on the _GET global, which overrides the config, which, of course, lets you view the source of any file:

    Compare:

    http://gforge.org/source.php?file=source.php


    http://gforge.org/source.php?sys_show_source=tru e& file=source.php

    Nice, eh?

  14. Re:There are some pretty big sites running GForge. by gavinroy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This would seem to be more a function of how *PHP* on the gforge server is setup. If register_globals is on, this will happen, if register_globals is off, which it is by default in the recent (read at least 1 year or more) stock php tarballs, this would not occur.

  15. Re:There are some pretty big sites running GForge. by gavinroy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The PostgreSQL community is also migrating to GForge from GBorg. I'm pretty excited to see the outcome. There are some things I'd like to see in GForge, which can easily happen if enough people take the time to submit patches, such as modular support for revision control systems. Remember GForge is a fork of Sourceforge, maintained by one of the original architects and authors of Sourceforge.