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Google Code Deprecates Download Service For Project Hosting
New submitter c0d3g33k writes "Google Project Hosting announced changes to the Download service on Wednesday, offering only 'increasing misuse of the service and a desire to keep our community safe and secure' by way of explanation. Effective immediately, existing projects that offer no downloads and all new projects will no longer be able to create downloads. Existing projects which currently have downloads will lose the ability to create new downloads by January 2014, though existing downloads will remain available 'for the foreseeable future.' Google Drive is recommended as an alternative, but this will likely have to be done manually by project maintainers since the ability to create and manage downloads won't be part of the Project Hosting tools. This is a rather baffling move, since distributing project files via download is integral to FOSS culture."
Becomes, "Don't Be Open."
This is a rather baffling move, since distributing project files via download is integral to FOSS culture."
Considering the recent spate of incidents involving Google taking a shit on the FOSS community that helped to create it, I don't find it baffling at all.
Google is finally turning into the dickhead actor who got rich and forgot who his real friends are.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I understand Google's need to "cut the fat" and focus on core services. Yes, I realize Google offers a lot if not most of their services for free. And, yes, I now realize I have a choice to leave Google all together because I'm tired of them getting me used to something then "yanking" it away from me and saying sorry. At this point I'd rather pay for a service that is more stable and long lasting.
Google seems to be in a "Fuck everything I've ever done!" phase.
Github did exactly the same thing quite some time ago, and people didn't complain too much. Why is this a big deal?
Code repositories are code repositories, file hosting is file hosting. Having to connect using version control is no real impediment to 'openness'
If this is "evil" what word do you use to describe "genocide?"
Back to sourceforge
And another one gone and another one gone...
Another one bites the dust!
Hey! I'm gonna get you too!
Another one bites the dust!
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Github did the same thing last year.
What the fuck Google? I have some rather successful projects, and my Google Code page is where users go to find the latest version. Fuck.
This effectively shuts down that project right? I can understand why Google would want to eliminate the ability of people to easily put an alternative OS on their Chromebook.
Github did this recently too which was annoying, because it was useful. They're not entirely clear why ... "confusing" doesn't seem nearly as likely as "abuse", though I am not aware of any abuse in particular. Since Google is providing Drive as an alternative, and not even immediately removing the service for those using it, it's not even as bad as Github's move, which removed it for everyone. I suppose it's an opportunity to cut another Google dependency though if you really want.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Google seems to be replacing everything with inferior versions now. (Or at least any of the things I have used).
I know more than a few projects using code.google.com that have downloads from a separate server, perhaps to get around some inconvienences already built into the system.
Maybe the cost of bandwidth is getting to be significant, or maybe it is due to abuse. The announcement seems to suggest people were creating projects just to distribute large files, probably copyrighted material, (and possibly malware), and getting Google to host it for free.
Still, if you have to set up two or more different services to host your project, why would you bother with the one that didn't allow project downloads? What would be the point of using that on a community project? It would seem this would drive the community away. Perhaps this telegraphs the death knell for yet another Google service?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Actually, that is what Google is saying to us, its customer^H^H^H^H^H^H product.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
just use
svn checkout enter-url-here
It's how I download everything from google code, and for github I use git. or is the command line "too ancient" to use anymore?
while
I wonder when they will yank Android. Did cost them to the tune of approximately 13-15 billions (buying the Android company + Motorola + dev costs + law suits + marketing +...+...) and earned them about 500 millions through ads. Even Samsung makes more money through Android then Google themselves. Hell, even MS makes more than double of that of Android through licence agreements with Android OEMs.
Financially, Android doesn't make sense for Google. Not at all. They would be better off without Android and subsequently without Motorola.
(down mod as much as you like, but these numbers are, to my best knowledge, just facts)
My MOM knows what BitTorrent is. It's available on nearly every platform in existence; there's even a javascript client, I think? Some browsers now have clients built-in or available via extensions. With DHT supported by most every client, you don't even need a tracker. Web seeding means you don't have to guarantee seeded peers if you've got some HTTP mirror available somewhere.
So, can FOSS projects please grow up and start using bittorrent more? Can we make torrents a little more transparent to users, as well? As in, you click a link and you don't need to do anything else, no external programs, etc? Some big projects like Libreoffice have been using BitTorrent for a while; distributions have been as well even longer.
PS:For the love of god, please pick a sensible chunk size *glares at people who create 300MB torrents with 4MB chunk sizes*
Please help metamoderate.
Remember when it was normal to move files around with standard protocols, which worked reliably and didn't require any bizarre shit? And then remember when someone came up with a great idea of offering file storage service, with the caveat that you would have to use weird special software in order to upload and download your files, so that we could move toward a situation where it's not always necessarily available (e.g., if the weird software hasn't been ported to your box yet) not as easily scriptable, and just didn't work as well?
People, when that happened, you were supposed to laugh in Dropbox's face, slapping your knee while between chuckles you weakly uttered "oh my god, what a stupid idea! And how insulting for you to think we're stupid enough to fall for it!"
That's what you were supposed to say. Instead, it seems that a bunch of people said, "oh, cooool!!!" instead.
So of course Google had to go make Google Drive, to catch up on being as horrible as Dropbox, so that Dropbox wouldn't get the whole market of stupid people. Stupid people are a valuable market.
But once they had to deal with stupid people and not-stupid people, they had a problem: wouldn't it be more profitable, if we could get non-stupid people to do things The Stupid Way? You know, run our "drive" software instead of rsync, sftp, etc?
So here we are. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for making these fucking weird nonstandard clients the new norm that everyone is expected to put up with. I just realized something: you all didn't really hate AOL, did you? It stopped being "cool" (?!) but you never understood why it wasn't cool, huh?
The last times I tried using Google Drive, if you downloaded more than one file, it would make a zip file with the files where the dates were all reset to Jan-1-1980. Does it still do that?
That's a deal-killer to me and makes the service unusable. DropBox doesn't do that - so I know it's not technically impossible to so something so difficult as preserve a file's modify-time.
well, thank the FSM that I never moved away from sourceforge. I migrated from CVS to SVN, now I moved to GIT, and their new Allura interface is quite nice. The only thing that I'm missing in the bug tracker is a way to properly define dependencies between bugs.
Github did it first
Quoting the comments:
Setup looks pretty simple; but, since I don't have code in Google Code, I can't put it to the test. Can anyone attest to how well this works?
Finding God in a Dog
Host it wherever, throw in some ads, maybe even allow uploading... Profit?!
captcha: manure
I know it fell out of favor for new projects when Google Code / CodePlex / GitHub came on the scene with their Web 2.0 design hotness and minimalistic feature sets, but SourceForge is still around and continues to improve without taking any features away.
Google taketh away.
A few hours ago, I was just thinking this might happen someday, and wondering if I should use sourceforge for the downloads of my next software releases in the coming days. Never thought that someday might be today!
Anyone else hate how Google announces these sorts of things? It's always an "effective immediately" notification of change. They refuse to give anyone the opportunity to prepare for changes in polices. Sure they grandfather existing customers briefly but usually put a time limit on that too. In December they announced the end of free Google Apps Accounts, having disabled the sign up ability a few minutes before the release. This week they also shut down Google Checkout and Google Wallet (for physical goods - it will remain available for now for digital goods) with a similar notice, cutting the ability to sign up along with the notice. Google Reader, Google Health and Google Wave all died the same way - with an unceremonious, unfeeling notification out of the blue to users telling them that they couldn't expand what they were using and that anything they still had access to would be taken away eventually.
Thanks for not caring at all Google.
so, wait: when google said "don't be evil", they were simply promising that they would not engage in genocide, and everything else was on the table?
Strawman and exaggeration much?
What was asked is: if removing file hosting capabilities from code repository (still keeping the repository, old downloads and providing alternative file hosting) is "evil", what do you call genocide? I'd think you'd be pressed to find appropriate word even for kicking puppies then.
Forgive them. Products of a school system that has taught them that everything they do is worthy. The world owes them. ...
A trophy to every participant. Wining and losing are the same. As long as you show up
Google owes them everything forever. Anything less in their world view really is evil.
They feel they are being ROBBED.
You can not invalidate their feelings. That will make you insensitive and evil.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Well, I usually use "genocide".
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
"Evil"?
This sentence doesn't parse.
like google summer of code does, like gcc compile farm does, like slashdot story queue does. its not rocket science.
some people spent many hours customizing scripts to upload their builds to google code. now those scripts are useless. its fucking bullshit.
who say the solution is xyz, never actually mention the names of xyz.
old versions, dev versions, branch versions......
pretty soon you have 500MB of d/l files in your git repo.
yet another comment suggesting 'if youve got some XYZ somewhere'.
without mentioning the actual name of 'some xyz somewhere', no company name, no organization name, no url, no link, no nothing.
just some abstract idea that 'out there' is a bunch of free file hosting for everyone. its not true. its just not true.
if you dont have an host to store the web seed, web seeding is worthless.
and of course the amoral douches like pb would never in a million years dream of contributing to the community by web seeding floss projects.
I copied my project from http://code.google.com/p/carrotcake-cms/ to http://sourceforge.net/projects/carrotcakecms/ this afternoon on account of that post, it even did a full trunk pull from my existing googlecode SVN repo so I was able to retain the whole project history. Only thing I don't like is all the ad banners on SourceForge, but they aren't horrible.
I'm pretty sure lots of proyects will be moving to github/bitbucket/etc now!
here's there new Lic terms for all google code:
D&R (Death and Repudiation) License
========
This software may not be used directly by any living being. ANY use of this
software (even perfectly legitimate and non-commercial uses) until after death
is explicitly restricted. Any living being using (or attempting to use) this software
will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
For your protection, corpses will not be punished. We respectfully request
that you submit your uses (revisions, uses, distributions, uses, etc.) to
your children, who may vicariously perform these uses on your behalf. If
you use this software and you are found to be not dead, you will be punished
to the fullest extent of the law.
If you are found to be a ghost or angel, you will be punished to the fullest
extent of the law.
After your following the terms of this license, the author has vowed to repudiate
your claim, meaning that the validity of this contract will no longer be recognized.
This license will be unexpectedly revoked (at a time which is designated to be
most inconvenient) and involved heirs will be punished to the fullest extent
of the law.
Furthermore, if any parties (related or non-related) escape the punishments
outlined herein, they will be severely punished to the fullest extent of a new
revised law that (1) expands the statement "fullest extent of the law" to encompass
an infinite duration of infinite punishments and (2) exacts said punishments
upon all parties (related or non-related).
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
-1 for end user experience for getting code. At least, google code should still include a tab called downloads for links to whereever else for each download. That will minimize end-user-of-software (as in non-developer) confusion. Oh and I would also like to extend my personal invitation to all the MFs who abused the service with malware to please leave the planet as soon as possible. Remember, suicide is always an option to a worthless, counterproductive life.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Bitbucket offers public and private repos, file downloads, issue tracker, Git and Mercurial support.
That's the place to move your projects.
Well apparently telling people to go to netscape.com and click download instead of having it bundled is evil too. So I guess people here have to make up their mind.
Or, you know, FTP.
Yeah, right.
i provide a free service to my users, and i dont decide to pull the fucking plug for no apparent reason.