GIMP, Citing Ad Policies, Moves to FTP Rather Than SourceForge Downloads

Dangerous_Minds writes "GIMP, a free and open source alternative to image manipulation software like Photoshop, recently announced that it will no longer be distributing their program through SourceForge. Citing some of the ads as reasons, they say that the tipping point was 'the introduction of their own SourceForge Installer software, which bundles third-party offers with Free Software packages. We do not want to support this kind of behavior, and have thus decided to abandon SourceForge.' The policy changes were reported back in August by Gluster. GIMP is now distributing their software via their own FTP page instead." Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent.

Comments

BT

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a torrent up, many of us will seed for the community.

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't. Seeding is for loser. By download and not seeding, I not only don't pay back what I downloaded, but I fill someone else's seed quota, which hurts the swarm twice as much. It makes me feel so powerful.

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

Github, torrents, blogspot and some wiki provider might do the trick for them, if they want to escape source-forge.

Re:BT

[ottothecow]

What's funny about this, is that part of what *sucks* about sourceforge's download pages is that they are littered with the same kind of ads that bittorrent sites have (I know, I know, they can host the torrent from their own tracker, not some pirate thing)

You get to a download page and there are ads that scream things like "DOWNLOAD NOW", "CLICK HERE TO INSTALL", etc.

Frequent/savvy users are able to figure this out, but when you tell your parents that they can get this free photo editor, they end up with the same damn crapware on their computer as they would have had if they just went ahead and tried to pirate photoshop. The same thing is true about Paint.Net's download page...on their page, I see two giant colorful "Download" buttons that are actually ads. The actual download link is a standard text link that says "Paint.NET v3.5.11" which takes you to another page that has another giant colorful "Download" button. On that page, the real download links look like fake links...the button says "Download Now DotPDN LLC" which doesn't sound at all like what you want.

Sourceforge isn't quite as bad...the ads aren't always there, and often they show up on the post download ad-page (the one that says "your download will start shortly" so there if you click them, you often end up with both the file you want *and* the crapware...leaving a 50/50 chance the user will get the right file.

I get why the pirate sites have these misleading ads (and it probably helps discourage people from software piracy since they try it, get some weird downloader and ad-toolbar instead of the software they were looking for, and then give up)...but when respectable free alternatives resort to the same shady ads? wtf?

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

no thank you. official download sites are the only place to download application software.

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, can't the Gimp website put up a link to the torrent, then there'd be no ads.

Re:BT

[CastrTroy]

Sourceforge has been on a download slide for a while. I tried downloading FileZilla, via Sourceforge, their primary link, and instead of just using the regular installer, it uses a special Sourceforge installer that tries to get you to install other junk you don't need on your computer. If you click around a bit on the FileZilla site, you can fine the link to the bare-bones install.

That kind of junk you talk about with Paint.Net is exactly why I don't use it.

I very much support GIMP in using their own FTP server. Of course, nothing stops them from hosting their own bittorent tracker though. Using bit-torrent doesn't mean the torrent files has to go through the pirate bay or other torrent sites.

Re:BT

[Anrego]

Suspect trolling, but I'll take the bait..

What?

If you worried about compromised downloads, just about every project that does this publishes the hashes on their official site. Easy to verify someone hasn't slipped something in there...

Re: BT

[Anonymous Coward]

I would just like to point out that some of us ARE parents!

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

nobody notices or cares : )

Re: BT

[haruchai]

Yes, but you're not YOUR parents although you could very well be your own grandfather.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_My_Own_Grandpa

Re:BT

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I very much support GIMP in using their own FTP server. Of course, nothing stops them from hosting their own bittorent tracker though. Using bit-torrent doesn't mean the torrent files has to go through the pirate bay or other torrent sites.

They don't even need to host their own tracker. There are some industrial strength public trackers out there:

PublicBitTorrent
OpenBitTorrent
Demonii

They don't host torrents or anything else, they just provider tracker service. The gimp project would only need to generate a torrent file with one or more of those listed as trackers and then stick the torrent file on their ftp site.

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

But surely it would be easier for them to host their own tracker and link a .torrent file on their site than host their own FTP and have to provide all the bandwidth for it?

Re:BT

[SQLGuru]

It might be, but some of us would prefer FTP since bit torrent is blocked by some who see any torrenting as piracy.

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there anyone that will host the torrents for you so that there is always at least one seed?

The way I see it this would be the best of both worlds: reduced load for the canonical host, but also guaranteed availability/longevity.

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

Download sites mostly don't select what ads to display, and just use syndicated ad networks. Those networks serve download ads on download pages because they get paid per click, and download ads on download pages have high click-through rates.

Re:BT

[aliquis]

What?

5 insightful for what?

They can't just link the torrent file?
Or a magnet link?

No ads.

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

What's funny about this, is that part of what *sucks* about sourceforge's download pages is that they are littered with the same kind of ads that bittorrent sites have (I know, I know, they can host the torrent from their own tracker, not some pirate thing)

You get to a download page and there are ads that scream things like "DOWNLOAD NOW", "CLICK HERE TO INSTALL", etc.

Frequent/savvy users are able to figure this out, but when you tell your parents that they can get this free photo editor, they end up with the same damn crapware on their computer as they would have had if they just went ahead and tried to pirate photoshop.

What I do, and what I tell BT novices, is look for "magnet link" or an icon of a magnet. 100% of torrent sites have the magnet download option, and it's always called that way. It's unambiguous, in addition to the other advantages of using magnet links.

Re:BT

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Are there anyone that will host the torrents for you so that there is always at least one seed?

There is always web seeding.

Re:BT

[selbie]

Funny you mention Paint.Net. Two years ago, I made a very similar comment on the Paint.Net forums about misleading ads as download links. The ad in question was a link for downloading GIMP (bundled with crapware). The support forum volunteers just made fun of me and called me idiot names. Rick Brewster politely explained that he didn't want to lose money on ad revenue and needed the ads positioned very prominently. Search for (in quotes) "Ads on the website" to see the beating I took. So I have to applaud GIMP for taking a stand.

Re:BT

[Bert64]

Official package repositories are far better than arbitrary websites...

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

(I know, I know, they can host the torrent from their own tracker, not some pirate thing)

Uhm... so you know you are about to engage on a strawman and, yet, you go on with your argument on why you think pirate sites sometimes have misleading ads (to "discourage people from software piracy"? wtf?), as if it is (in any way) relevant to whether GIMP should provide official torrents of their releases (hint: Yes, they should, like 99% of linux distros out there already do).

And then you mention Paint.NET and its horribly misleading (and non-torrent related) website, yet again showing that "providing torrents" and "being a misleading website" are orthogonal properties.

So, your whole point is that Sourceforge isn't as bad as Paint.NET or other supposed misleading pirate sites and, therefore, GIMP shouldn't release its software as a torrent?

Ok, I admit, I have no idea what your point was, but, then again, you don't make it very clear either.

Have a nice day.

TL;DR: Due to torrent's intrinsic file integrity guarantees, it is actually the best way of an official releaser to ensure that the user will not be fed malware crap and will be given EXACTLY what you are uploading (unlike, say, Sourceforge, apparently).

Re:BT

[neokushan]

Did you like...just read the first sentence of his/her post and then ignore the rest?

Re: BT

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but somehow I doubt his name is Fry.

Re:BT

[jones_supa]

You get to a download page and there are ads that scream things like "DOWNLOAD NOW", "CLICK HERE TO INSTALL", etc.

Hah, yes, I hate those. Generally I keep advertisements unblocked to help websites get the funding that they need. But that kind of ads are just confusing and annoying and makes me not want to view ads on that website anymore. A high-quality advertising syndicate shouldn't allow advertisements which mimic other parts of the website, like with "download now" or "you have 1 new message".

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

The worst part about third party installers like sourceforge is that it will ask you "I agree to the terms of agreement to install Ask.com toolbar" and then you uncheck it and it installs anyways. This almost never fails, and it's not fishy English, they install it regardless and blame it on a technical glitch.

Re:BT

[arashi no garou]

I didn't see you being made fun of, I see a newcomer to a forum expressing a valid but ultimately unaccepted point, being told (yes, a bit harshly by one person who then apologized) that that's the way the developer wants it on his website, and in the end, there were no hard feelings expressed from anyone on the site.

If that's what you consider a beat-down, how have you survived the wild west of Slashdot??

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

What's funny about this, is that part of what *sucks* about sourceforge's download pages is that they are littered with the same kind of ads that bittorrent sites have

Installing adblock results in not seeing those ads.

but when you tell your parents that they can get this free photo editor, they end up with the same damn crapware on their computer as they would have had if they just went ahead and tried to pirate photoshop

You should have installed adblock (and firefox) on your parents computer long ago, and removed any links to ie. Then you'd have way much less of this problem.

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's what you consider a beat-down, how have you survived the wild west of Slashdot??

More like Brokeback Mountain these days.

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a good reason to provide as much non-pirate content as possible via bittorrent.

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

No need to ignore the rest. Just because many bittorrent sites serve ads doesn't mean that a link to the torrent file (which they could put anywhere where it is publicly accessible, not necessarily on one of those torrent files) would cause ads to be shown.

Re:BT

[ottothecow]

Unfortunately, the ads on the site for Paint.NET seem to come from doubleclick and google. So my guess isn't that this is due to a permissive site owner. If they found those ads objectionable, those providers would be able to serve them something better (most of the time; there are always dirtbag advertisers who mislabel things and try to cheat the system in order to have their ads show up where they are not wanted)

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

What's funny about this, is that part of what *sucks* about sourceforge's download pages is that they are littered with the same kind of ads that bittorrent sites have (I know, I know, they can host the torrent from their own tracker, not some pirate thing)

If you know, why do you bring it up?

Re:BT

[tverbeek]

I've experienced the same kind of shut-up-the-developer-hath-spoken treatment from the Paint.net forum on other matters. It's one of the reasons I don't recommend it anymore (that and the issues with the software that I'd asked about).

Re:BT

[Wootery]

I know you're trolling and all, but regarding

It makes me feel so powerful.

This doesn't really hold up given that the torrent still works for everyone else, does it?

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

But if download sites actually cared, they could punish the download networks which show such misleading advertising, by withdrawing their custom and moving to a more ethical competitor.

Of course, generally speaking, download sites *do* care, just not about the visitors.

Re:BT

[Wootery]

No need to ignore the rest.

You are in no position to assert this, having clearly not read all of ottothecow's comment.

The point isn't about BitTorrent at all - it's about dodgy adverts. No-one is suggesting that GIMP actually use BitTorrent as their primary means of distribution, but the ads on SourceForge can be compared to those on BitTorrent sites.

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

I complained to the Filezilla author about this very thing and his stance was "too bad". Not in those exact words, but much longer and wordier. When the SourceForge crap installer was broken and wouldn't install Filezilla on x64 machines using an x64 OS, he didn't want to hear about that either.

Just like he blatantly ignores the fact that Filezilla does not save site passwords encrypted on your system. It's a plaintext XML file.

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

Magnet links.

Re:BT

[Redmancometh]

I certainly would though I hate that its come to that. The ad creep on sourceforge isn't TOO bad yet....but the second I have to check the link destination of "download" links because they might bevads....Ill be gone from there.

Re:BT

[tlhIngan]

Unfortunately, the ads on the site for Paint.NET seem to come from doubleclick and google.

They're one and the same, you know - Google owns DoubleClick for a long time now.

Anyhow, next time it happens, you should report that it has a bunch of crap attached with it - you clicked the download link after all, and it's not entirely your fault for paint.NET looking like GIMP and installing adware.

Re:BT

[daveime]

> Filezilla does not save site passwords encrypted on your system

Because having the decryption keys on the very same machine is SO MUCH SAFER !!!

Re:BT

[anyGould]

Download sites mostly don't select what ads to display, and just use syndicated ad networks. Those networks serve download ads on download pages because they get paid per click, and download ads on download pages have high click-through rates.

I call shenanigans - if indie webcomic authors can (and do!) block ads they don't want on their site, surely a large organization can do the same.

And if they're deliberately courting the fake download ads on their download pages to trick their users into clicking? That's not the sort of organization I want to support anyhow.

Re:BT

[Anonymous Coward]

Sourceforge is horrible. Really horrible.

Iv worked in IT for 20 years. Iv been an Oracle DBA for about 17 of those years - and even Iv downloaded and installed crapware from time to time. Usually when Im rushing to beat the clock.

One of them was even so malicious it destroyed the Windows partition. Simple solution there was to just not bother reinstalling it...

Anyway tho - Sourceforge is dreadful. It is difficult to understand which button to press to get the software you want and all too easy to get crapware. My 71 year old father would total his system if I asked him to install GIMP and get it from Sourceforge.

There is "no maybe" about it.

And lets give a big ./ WELL DONE to GIMP for making this move.

Re:BT

[Artemis3]

You don't even need a tracker or .torrent, a mere magnet link would do, and dht can take care of the rest.

Of course for a project like Gimp, it would be prettier for them to host their own tracker.

Re:BT

[steveg]

Personally, I don't so much mind them saving the passwords in the *clear*.

I mind them saving passwords at *all*. By default. If you spend considerable time searching, you will find that to disable this silly behavior you can do so by the intuitive method af adding a configuration file in the program directory with a particular setting in it to enable "kiosk mode."

Otherwise it will record the password to every site you connect to. Silently.

Re:BT

[Applekid]

The worst part about third party installers like sourceforge is that it will ask you "I agree to the terms of agreement to install Ask.com toolbar" and then you uncheck it and it installs anyways. This almost never fails, and it's not fishy English, they install it regardless and blame it on a technical glitch.

The technical glitch was letting you uncheck it at all. :)

Re:BT

[salnikov]

As powerful as leech.

Re:BT

[Dahan]

People had been complaining about misleading "download" ads on TortoiseSVN's download page for years, and the maintainer, Stefan Küng, refused to do anything about it, basically saying he develops TSVN for free, so he's entitled to as much ad money as he can get. Even reasonable suggestions such as putting a border around the ad that said "Advertisement" were rejected. I had even offered to donate to the project if he put a labeled border around the ads. While I don't have any problems with him getting ad revenue, I did have a problem with him relying on deception to get it. So, I suggested that anyone who found the ad placement misleading file a policy violation report with Google ("The site makes it difficult to distinguish ads from content."). In response, he killfiled me and banned me from the tortoisesvn-users list. Talk about butthurt :P. But perhaps the reports had an effect, since he did add the border as had been suggested. And I donated 150 euros to the project. And I still think Stefan Küng is an asshole (which I mentioned in my Paypal note to him :)

Re:BT

[hobarrera]

They can share a torrent link in their own website, no need to go to a "torrent website". Debian, Fedora and OpenBSD do this; they just share the torrent file/magnet URL on their own websites.

good move

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't been impressed by SourceForge's recent policy of late- especially when I unclick the 'free software' offers attached to each download, yet they install anyway!

Re:good move

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporations, fucking everything for short-term profit .

Re:good move

[Nom du Keyboard]

Haven't been impressed by SourceForge's recent policy of late- especially when I unclick the 'free software' offers attached to each download, yet they install anyway!

Gee, that happens to you too? And here I was thinking that it was just Operator Error on my part.

Re: good move

[Anonymous Coward]

better than the alternative which is governments fucking everyone for nothing

Re: good move

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think the only choice in life is who will fuck you, consider a career outside prostitution. There are plenty of living arrangements that are not dominated by government or business interests. However they have been unfortunately successful at promoting the false dilemma fallacy.

Re:good move

[vlueboy]

Corporations, fucking everything for short-term profit .

"This for that." We had "free" internet for a long time. Our brains were conditioned and we don't outright flee.
The piper has come to collect their dues, and it's too late to find some alternative.
The funny thing is we *think* "I already pay my monthly bandwidth dues." But none of that goes to compensate the guy on the other side of the pipe

When the product is actually NOT free so we can "vote with our wallets," what's a fair balance between
1) how much you feel you're downloading vs.
2) how much the corporation feels it deserves for that digital copy of their product

Re:good move

[Anonymous Coward]

On top of the installer-wrappers that download sites try to force on you which install shite you don't want (Bing toolbar, anyone?), finding the right download link amongst all the graphical adverts which pretend to look like the official download button is getting to be frustratingly annoying, wether it's on a public torrent site or a legitimate download site.

How can we tell those site admins to fucking stop that shit forthwith?

Re:good move

[Bert64]

I can't say i've ever downloaded an "installer" from sourceforge, usually i just download actual source code...

On the other hand i always hated how the download link goes to another page which then performs the download in the background on a timer, i have always hated pages like this and its especially bad for something like sourceforge.

I want a link i can cut+paste into wget, i DO NOT want anything to start downloading in my browser unless i explicitly tell it to. Given the nature of sourceforge, many users of the site will be downloading something not to their local box where their browser is running but to a server of some kind. And i would much rather download a file direct to a gigabit colocated box than first download it to my workstation over DSL and then upload it back to the colo box using the pitiful upstream connection we have here.

Re:good move

[Bert64]

Adblock, removes all the bullshit ads and leaves only the real download button...
If ads are intentionally trying to mislead then i have absolutely no intention of supporting them.

Re: good move

[fyngyrz]

Yeah, there's plenty of government screwing the people, but on the other hand...

Disaster relief... research... NASA... roads... the CDC... food inspections... the NWS... NOAA... you know, actual useful things... not exactly "nothing."

Try to point your finger at the actual problems rather than trying to paint the good and bad with the same brush. Then people may listen. Some of them, anyway.

Re:good move

[Gothmolly]

How is this Insightful? At best it's cliche. Bashing corporations isn't even trying anymore. Besides, how is SF supposed to stay in business at all without selling some kind of product?

Re:good move

[Ash-Fox]

I want a link i can cut+paste into wget, i DO NOT want anything to start downloading in my browser unless i explicitly tell it to. Given the nature of sourceforge, many users of the site will be downloading something not to their local box where their browser is running but to a server of some kind. And i would much rather download a file direct to a gigabit colocated box than first download it to my workstation over DSL and then upload it back to the colo box using the pitiful upstream connection we have here.

Sourceforge download pages detect wget and use HTTP redirect to the correct download link. So, I don't get what your problem is?

Re:good move

[Redmancometh]

Now you don't uncheck a box...its more insidious. You get showns TOSs and have to decline them.

Re:good move

[Anonymous Coward]

Sourceforge download pages detect wget and use HTTP redirect to the correct download link. So, I don't get what your problem is?

Well, that's new. It certainly didn't do that for many years. It still saves it at the wrong name, but at least it's just "download" instead of the crazy crap using wget on the direct link gives.

Re:good move

[AbominousSalad]

It seems like a very good time to bring heightened awareness to my sig. Consider this story to be a pre-toldjaso.

Seriously, where?

Re:good move

[Anonymous Coward]

> I want a link i can cut+paste into wget

Guess what? You can copy & paste the link to wget, and it'll download the file immediately. Looks like the site (still) does user-agent detection, and when that contains "wget", you get a straight redirect to download.

Re: good move

[fyngyrz]

Hey, look, someone forgot to IQ test the moderator(s) again. Slashdot, lol.

Re:good move

[Anonymous Coward]

People, fucking everyone for short-term profit .

Good

[Sean]

Sourceforge is garbage now.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

This is so true.

Re:Good

[sconeu]

Indeed. Good on the GIMP guys. Freaked me out the first time I got that on SF.

Re:Good

[CitizenCain]

How to destroy a powerful brand in 1 easy steps! (SourceForge, not GIMP.)

And yeah, while SourceForge has been declining for a while now, this is something entirely different from a slow decline... they may as well have taken it out back and shot it. Be quicker, and probably cheaper in the long run too.

Re:Good

[amicusNYCL]

It's easy enough for me to click the Decline button instead of Accept (I'm one of the minority of users who reads things like that), but the installer doesn't even work that well. I was using Windows Remote Desktop to connect with a client's server, and the connection was pretty spotty. The server desktop was more like a slideshow. So instead of trying to edit code directly, I decided to upload all of their code to an FTP server, edit it locally, and then download the changes. So, I go to install Filezilla on the remote server. The entire SourceForge site is a mess. My remote desktop connection is already a slideshow and then SF is showing me Flash ads on every page, including the download pages, and when I finally punch through that mess and get the installer which I know is coming, I run the thing and it tells me I don't have an internet connection. Which is interesting, since I'm running the installer via remote desktop. Maybe it uses a port that was blocked on the network. After a few futile attempts to find a non-installer link on SF, I jumped back to my local PC and found a usable URL that I pasted into the remote desktop session to download. At least Filezilla is hosted on download.filezilla-project.org, but I'm sure there are a lot of projects hosted on SF that don't have a great alternative place to download.

Dice completely ruined the reputation of SourceForge. Slashdot isn't completely in the shitter yet, but I feel like it's inevitable. Well, we had a good run, anyway.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, so is Slashdot. And for the same reasons.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sourceforge is garbage now."

So is Slashdot. Neither are an unbiased, open community anymore and as such no longer serve their intended purpose. Perhaps that was the goal all along.

Here is another bit of information that needs to be thrown in the mix.

From the Dice Holdings Inc. Third Quarter 2013 Results posted here:

http://www.diceholdingsinc.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=211152&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1869460&highlight=

"For the quarter ended September 30, 2013, Tech & Clearance segment revenues increased 12% year-over-year to $37.0 million, or 70% of Dice Holdings' consolidated revenues. Slashdot Media contributed $3.7 million to revenues in the third quarter of 2013, as compared to $0.8 million in the same period a year ago, while The IT Job Board® added $1.1 million to Tech & Clearance revenues in the quarter after writing down $0.4 million of acquired revenue. Third quarter revenues in our Dice.com service increased slightly compared to the prior year's third quarter, while ClearanceJobs.com posted a 5% year-over-year decline in revenues due to sequestration..."

When growth in all other sectors remained relatively minimal, revenue from Slashdot increased roughly four-fold. How, in the last year alone, has Slashdot managed to bring in that much more revenue? Who handed over nearly 3 million dollars this last year?

Re:Good

[viperidaenz]

Maybe Slashdot offer a service where a company pays a fee to guarantee a story makes it to the front page.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

There was probably also a four-fold increase in ads and slashvertisements drawing ad impressions.

Re:Good

[Deathlizard]

Just about all download sites are garbage anymore. The only one I find that has no Adware garbage on it is nonags.com, but it's woefully out of date.

When I got to tell our customers "Don't Download Anything, Anywhere, Anytime" because I can't trust any download site Including the Windows 8 Store, There's an epidemic going on.

Until AV Programs start getting a pair and flag anything that installs as bundleware malicious, this will not stop, Although you'll never see it because Big Names like Google and Microsoft Both bundle their apps with software.

Re:Good

[ElectricTurtle]

Somebody mod this interesting/informative, stat.

Re:Good

[Trogre]

Advertisers. /. runs a business model in a similar manner to Google. Put up the content for no direct charge, and sell advertising space.

A business model I happen to like*, since I'd rather not pay a subscription fee for a website's bandwidth, hosting, etc.

* So long as the ads remain in their predictable spaces, and are not intrusive. As soon as obnoxious, flashing, "Download HERE!!!", ads start showing up I will start using adblock.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, but slashdot always ran ads.

The important part is the substantial increase in a world where ad revenues are generally decreasing.

Either slashdot suddenly got way more popular, or the new owners are doing evil things...

Re:Good

[WWJohnBrowningDo]

They outsourced the editing department to India so that the grammar and spelling errors could mask their nefarious activities. Sneaky bastards!

Re: Good

[Anonymous Coward]

ninite.com was pretty good last I checked.

Re:Good

[bill_mcgonigle]

they may as well have taken it out back and shot it. Be quicker, and probably cheaper in the long run too.

If they did this, they'd just catch a bunch of nerd range. This way, they hack together a cheap and craptacular installer, and then the nerds demand it be shut down. Parent company closes down a money-losing business with the users' blessing.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot isn't completely in the shitter yet, but I feel like it's inevitable. Well, we had a good run, anyway.

Cumming from a guy with a ONE MILLION /. ID?

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like the Windows 8.1 stories?

Re:Good

[MightyYar]

All this talk about gimps and San Francisco...

Re:Good

[gman003]

I browse everything with Adblock, just because it's saved my ass from malware injected into ads more than once. If I like a site sufficiently, I give it a chance. But if I see any of the following, I turn it back on:
Flash
animated ads (no video - small animations are a maybe) - this is what got /. back on the block list
political/religious ads
ads literally in the middle of the content
anything disguised as a download button, or disguised as anything but an ad

And I also tend to turn it back on if I never see relevant ads. For instance, I read a *lot* of webcomics. What's advertised a lot on webcomics? Why, other comics. It's fairly common for me to go weeks seeing only ads for comics I already read, or ones that I've checked out and decided I don't like. At that point, I often turn blocking back on, if it's even mildly irritating.

Re:Good

[Nimey]

Pah. Slashdot's been in the shitter for years, it's just that we can still use the periscope and snorkel.

Re:Good

[Nimey]

Filehippo's pretty good.

Re:Good

[QRDeNameland]

So is Slashdot. Neither are an unbiased, open community anymore and as such no longer serve their intended purpose. Perhaps that was the goal all along.

I tend to doubt that was the goal, but having thought about it, sadly I think it is inevitable that this will happen. Even if Slashdot or SourceForge or even Wikipedia were started with the purest of 'open community' intentions, when such an effort succeeds, what have you created? An organization with increasing costs with your greatest asset being your good reputation. And unfortunately, the easiest and likely most profitable ways to monetize that reputation are those that will most sell out those original intentions. Even if the founders remain principled and resist doing that, members of the organization will eventually leave and be replaced, then, oh well, a few ads won't hurt...then, we need more ad revenue...eventually, you're doing things like shoveling toolbars until that reputation is shit.

It sucks and I wish I knew the solution, but it happens all too often IMO.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps this is a cunning exit strategy; make a fast buck off a dying brand they were going to kill off anyway.

Re:Good

[Bill Dimm]

I wonder if they get paid for all those ad "impressions" that occur when the Slashdot tab I'm not looking at is refreshing itself all day long... A factor of four seems too small, though.

Re:Good

[Z00L00K]

Only thing we have left now is 4chan - which never was good.

Re:Good

[lister king of smeg]

How to destroy a powerful brand in 1 easy steps! (SourceForge, not GIMP.)

And yeah, while SourceForge has been declining for a while now, this is something entirely different from a slow decline... they may as well have taken it out back and shot it. Be quicker, and probably cheaper in the long run too.

If they did this, they'd just catch a bunch of nerd range. This way, they hack together a cheap and craptacular installer, and then the nerds demand it be shut down. Parent company closes down a money-losing business with the users' blessing.

Then why the hell did our DICE overlords buy Sourceforge and Slashdot if they are just going to destroy the brand

Re:Good

[lister king of smeg]

You mean like the Windows 8.1 stories?

You mean someone actually paid money to give slashdoters a chance to bash on windows? Isn't that what we do all of the time anyway?

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who handed over nearly 3 million dollars this last year?"

Self correction:

"Who handed over nearly 3 million dollars this last quarter?"

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Great idea. Let's all chip in for a goatse.cx article!

Re:Good

[kermidge]

It's been maybe half a year since I was last there, but for years I found Major Geeks to be OK; their reviews and how-tos could be helpful. Tucows used to get good recommendations but for whatever reason I rarely used it.

A site I've used for many years even before the name change, mostly for Windows stuff, is http://www.snapfiles.com/. They've got freeware and shareware, user and editor reviews, all no bullshit stuff. I think it's a highly under-rated place.

Re:Good

[The_Revelation]

Ever since SourceForge started their "8 bonus pieces of malware with every legitimate open source software download" offer, my computer has run like shit. I welcome our new FTP overlords!

Re:Good

[Bert64]

No community is unbiased...

Re:Good

[TheRaven64]

I don't think we can blame DICE for this. SourceForge has been increasingly bad for years. The real question is why DICE thought SourceForge was worth anything. Ten years ago, looking for open source stuff (or looking for somewhere to host a new project), SourceForge would have been near the top of my list. Now, and for the last few years, whenever I see a SourceForge link I expect to see either an abandoned project or a site that's totally impossible to navigate to find what I want.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

All that aggression!

You lift weights? I lift joints!

Walk it off!

That shit looks painful!

Them white boys had me on crystal meth!

Although, to be fair, the gimp was in Venturas and not in Fierro.

Re:Good

[funny_smell]

This last year I saw the ads getting localized. They are now mainly in our native language, instead of English, and quite related to the things I do.

I click more than ever in the slashdots ads now. This year I should have clicked in... hum, almosts a dozen. Compared to zero in the previous years, it's a big (relative) improvement.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't name anyone (although I'm sure you can figure it out), but I can assure you that they have at least gotten someone from Apple submitting pro-apple / anti-everything-else posts. I miss cowboy neal :(

Re:Good

[DG]

Oh, hardly.

People have been complaining about the decline of /. since day 1.

DG

Re:Good

[Ash-Fox]

Woha, people with three digit UIDs still visit this place.

Re:Good

[Svartalf]

Heh...they were complaining about the predecessor, Chips and Dips, from it's day 1... >:-D

Re:Good

[Svartalf]

Yeah, as do some of the 4-digit crowd as well...

Re:Good

[geminidomino]

Pretty sure that's been a given for some time (Packt, anyone?)

It does make me wonder if some of the many obvious shills might actually be on the Dice payroll, providing another income path.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the annoying side ads that appear along the sides of the page where, if you try to click and scroll the page with the mouse wheel, you actually click on the ad.

Re:Good

[Redmancometh]

If that's you r opinion then go away please.

Re:Good

[DG]

How would you know, you 4-digit n00b? :)

(Yes, I know, we all resisted getting accounts at first)

Re:Good

[DG]

Dude, this is my *home*.

Re:Good

[VGPowerlord]

Microsoft Security Essentials actually flags SourceForge's installer as malicious. I forget what exactly it calls it, but I ran into it when I had to install something from there recently (likely Filezilla on a new machine).

Re:Good

[Nimey]

We did. That's why my uid is so high; I didn't bother getting an account until there got to be so many comments that I had to start filtering.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit! I never knew both ./ & the IT Job Board are owned by the same company. The IT Job Board have been buying email lists and spamming the recipients and refuse to do anything about it.

If it worked for CNet's downloads.com for Windows

[themushroom]

then certainly the open source community would appreciate bundled bullshit too!

SourceForge

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really care about GIMP, but I'm sorry, SourceForge, your glory days are over.

BTW, anyone know a reason not to host small projects on BitBucket?

Re:SourceForge

[HiThere]

I *do* care about Gimp, but I get it from Debian. These days I use SourceForge so rarely that I hadn't even heard about their new installer. But that *IS* a good reason to use it much less than before.

Re:Sourceforge

[lord_mike]

When did this start happening? I just downloaded something from them a few weeks ago. Is this recent? Is there any way to bypass this "custom installer"?

Re:Sourceforge

[Anonymous Coward]

Sourceforge changed the most popular download link (which would be the stable 32-bit Windows version) of some hosted projects to download that custom installer.
The bad thing is that there is no way at all to get the normal installer from Sourceforge, not even by manually choosing the installer you would normally use in the "Files" view(if you are a Windows user). Either get a different version that still runs on your PC (.zip package or 64-bit version) or download the program from elsewhere.
Linux and Mac users are not affected as far as I know though.

But now comes the really outrageous thing: The stats for the replaced installer in the "Files" view still use the [i]original installer's stats[/i], like file size, file name and MD5 Checksum, not the ones of the custom installer.
In other words, Sourceforge is basically pulling a trojan horse, in a very deceitful way.

Re:Sourceforge

[cOldhandle]

That sounds incredibly shady - I'm glad I saw your warning in time. Maybe if enough people report them to stopbadware.org they can be recognized as an attack site and blocked in browsers until they clean up/shut down completely.

Re:Sourceforge

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the installer only applies to Windows (and I think it may be only for pre-built Windows executables, not source code). Guess which files get the largest amounts of downloads.

first third party offer!

[Anonymous Coward]

Click here to get mug of frosty piss!

Re:first third party offer!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sourceforge new motto?

shovelware?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I can't get enough iLivid installs! That and another Ask! toolbar! Sign me up!

Re:shovelware?

[Quakeulf]

I didn't Ask for this.

Re:shovelware?

[Zumbs]

It's great how Ask protects me from the evil malware on the internet - I can't even see a page for all the toolbars, much less download anything!

Re:shovelware?

[torsmo]

I would be Livid if somebody Asks me to install a toolbar again.

So Brave

[Anonymous Coward]

"Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent."

Re:So Brave

[Valdrax]

"Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent."

Then, have any of you (the editorial staff) thought to voice a complaint to your parent about being associated with what is widely considered a shady practice?

Re:So Brave

[Anonymous Coward]

This looks like a public complaint to me.

Re:So Brave

[Anonymous Coward]

You're expecting a little bit too much of our so-called editors.

Re:So Brave

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously been here long enough that you know the "editorial staff" don't give a fuck about "shady" business practices, so long as their pockets are getting lined in the process.

I'm sure you'll still mod me down for saying it anyway, though. Those are the perils of trying to talk sense into zealots.

Re:So Brave

[Nom du Keyboard]

"Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent."

Then, have any of you (the editorial staff) thought to voice a complaint to your parent about being associated with what is widely considered a shady practice?

Posted again verbatim just in case they missed it the first time around. It is truly shady to pull this crap.

Re:So Brave

[kelemvor4]

"Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent."

Then, have any of you (the editorial staff) thought to voice a complaint to your parent about being associated with what is widely considered a shady practice?

You must have confused dice for a company that cares.

Re:So Brave

[PhilHibbs]

They are publicising the situation, giving the community the chance to have their say. What's the problem? If I have a problem with my company's policies, I voice them internally and carry on doing my job. I don't publish them on a blog or the company's internet page.

Re:So Brave

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have confused dice for a company that cares.

It is very easy to confuse them with DICE if you don't care about letter case.

Re:So Brave

[TangoMargarine]

So glad that they mentioned this in TFS - now we have *two* reasons to be mad at them! :D

Re:So Brave

[Valdrax]

If I have a problem with my company's policies, I voice them internally and carry on doing my job. I don't publish them on a blog or the company's internet page.

You (probably) don't work for a business that can channel impotent rage into page views & ad revenue. Letting a bunch of people vent on a forum somewhere won't change anything; it's just added profit to the whole venture.

who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

GIMP can't do CMYK, so WHO CARES??

Re:who cares

[hawguy]

GIMP can't do CMYK, so WHO CARES??

The majority of people that do graphics for web, not print?

Re:who cares

[suutar]

or just want a (really) inexpensive program that can do layers.

Re:who cares

[NIK282000]

It does everything else with 100% cost savings. I'm not paying Adobe near a thousand bucks for 2 features (CMYK and 16bit depth), that I can get by using a few other open source odds and ends in conjunction with Gimp.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

People who don't want to have to pay a monthly Photoshop bill care...

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

but not adjustment layers

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Or who wants their personal info well protected...

Re:who cares

[Shados]

Even legitimate photoshop users never pay that much for it, unless you need the whole package with everything Adobe makes for corporate customers or whatever.

There's always a way to get it cheaper. When I bought it, it was via the discount you get when buying a wacom tablet, which you probably want anyway. The upgrade was like 350 or something from there...

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

or style layers.

Re:who cares

[ColdWetDog]

There are lots of other low cost pixel editors that compete with Photoshop. Since Adobe's moron move to the "Creative Cloud" (which may represent a state of mind among Adobe executives rather than a description of the system which is simply Software As A Service) thousands of photographers have been ditching PS. Corel's Paintshop Pro, while commercial software is less expensive than PS. Paintshop even does layers, 16 bit and CMYK output.

Re:who cares

[phantomfive]

Photoshop CS2 is free, and it's better than GIMP even though it's nearly a decade old. There's no reason at all to use GIMP unless you are using Linux or morally oppose closed-source software.

Re:who cares

[mark-t]

It will.... very soon now.

Re:who cares

[mark-t]

CS2 crashes frequently on Windows... takes longer to start up, especially on lower end PCs, and doesn't seem to leave a user with any option to permanently bypass product registration, nagging the user every single time it starts up until they do.

Re:who cares

[TechyImmigrant]

Or tinted layers with a volumizing mousse cut in an attractive bob.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

GIMP is a terminally retarded toy. Every second you use it it feels like fighting with windmills. Say you have a greylevel png you want to turn into transparency (for use as avatar). Clone the channel as alpha? Well... simple tasks must not have straight-forward solutions, hurray for teh gimp, you are the king!

If someone has any recommendations for a capable photo editor, that can work with logos, etc., please, I'm all ears. F**k teh gimp!

Re:who cares

[phantomfive]

And yet it is still better than GIMP, a fact that is utterly pathetic.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, plus ImageMagick has a way better user interface.

Re:who cares

[bmo]

and doesn't seem to leave a user with any option to permanently bypass product registration, nagging the user every single time it starts up until they do.

You have a 6-digit slashdot ID.

I would think that someone with one would have been around the block long enough to know how to set up a disposable email account, like 10-minute-mail.

http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html

You're welcome.

CS2 crashes frequently on Windows...

On what version? It runs just fine in FLP.

--
BMO

Re:who cares

[Kjella]

Paint.NET also does layers and is free for both private and commercial use. Yes, you must be running Windows but for all of us that do it's a huge step up from MS Paint in functionality, GIMP in usability and Photoshop in simplicity. I've found it to cover pretty much all my needs, those thing I'd like to do that I've found hard to do haven't been any easier in GIMP.

Re:who cares

[mark-t]

And yet it is still better than GIMP

I disagree. GIMP is way faster, you can run it from a portable usb drive without even needing to install anything, and requires far less memory resources. Photoshop is bloated with features that are unnecessary for most types of digital image editing, but still take up all of the same space.

Re:who cares

[mark-t]

One should not have to do that in the first place... if I say that I do not want to register, I shouldn't be forced to always mean something like "remind me later".

Oh, and the version of Windows that I found CS2 always crashed on was XP.

Re:who cares

[__aasehi2499]

Please to tell how to get 16 bit color depth in GIMP???

Re:who cares

[Nom du Keyboard]

Since Adobe's moron move to the "Creative Cloud" (which may represent a state of mind among Adobe executives rather than a description of the system which is simply Software As A Service) thousands of photographers have been ditching PS. Corel's Paintshop Pro, while commercial software is less expensive than PS. Paintshop even does layers, 16 bit and CMYK output.

I have to question that. All previous DVD versions of CS thru CS6 continue to run as is with no additional money required. Only when you want new features beyond CS6 do you have to start with the Adobe monthly fee or move to an alternative. Like MSWord since probably Word 95, if not 6, PS has been so over-featured for most users that what more do you need that they haven't already thought of and included? So why would anyone dump an already paid-for program to learn a new one? My guess is that they're just not getting new users nearly as much as before.

The favorite boast I hear from many PS users with personal copies (when the company is paying the bill it's a whole different matter, of course) is who is using the oldest version of PS and is still completely happy with it. This week it was a PS5 (not CS5 -- PS5) user. Personally I used PS7 for a long time until I was given a copy of CS1, and am now only on CS3, where I will likely live for a good long while now.

Re:who cares

[phantomfive]

What kind of system are you editing graphics from where you need to run GIMP from a portable USB drive? To be honest, I'm seriously doubting you do much editing of digital images.

Re:who cares

[mark-t]

Install-free is always nice to have because you can do it anywhere... you aren't restricted to only doing it at one computer.

Re:who cares

[HiThere]

Well, I am on Linux, and while I don't morally oppose using closed-source software, per se, I don't trust it for a tool, and I am morally opposed to most of the EULAs that such software tends to attach.

OTOH, for a game I see no reason to object to closed source software, but I still object to intrusive EULAs. (Reasonable terms are one thing, but abusive requirements are something totally else. If I can't install it, I'm not interested. And if there's a requirement that calling home is allowed, I want my money back. I run closed source software in a virtual machine with no internet connectivity.

My attitude is due to many past experiences with companies that I thought were reasonably trustworthy. But every day I seem to encounter another story saying that I'm still overly trusting.

OTOH, if you are already running MSWind or Apple, then you've already signed away all your rights. (You *did* read the EULA didn't you?) Anything you do on the computer, they have the right to copy off, and then delete or silently modify your copy. That they don't do this is a business decision on their part, because users of those systems have signed away permission. IANAL, so I can't say that they have the right to use your images for commercial gain. (Well, and I also haven't seen an EULA from either MS or Apple in over a decade. They could have changed things.)

Re:who cares

[phantomfive]

Well that doesn't answer the question I asked, but you have further confirmed my suspicion that you don't edit digital images very often.

Re:who cares

[phantomfive]

Yeah, there are plenty of good, practical reasons to use open source. So many, especially for programmers.

Re:who cares

[gl4ss]

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/buying-guide.html

you will pay a thousand bucks in 4 years... if you're lucky and you don't pay the spending limit of your credit card ;))DDDD

Re:who cares

[mark-t]

The question was "What kind of system are you editing graphics from where you need to run GIMP from a portable USB drive?"

A system that I don't necessarily have permanent use of, and wish to do editing on without having to install anything.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

For any 16bit depth work (on photos) try RawTherapee. Its a FOSS alternative to Lightroom, it's resource heavy but otherwise its fantastic.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

+5 sad, funny, true, insightful, and wtf-gimp-get-into-at-least-the-90s-already-please

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Even legitimate photoshop users never pay that much for it, unless you need the whole package with everything Adobe makes for corporate customers or whatever.

Where I work, anything as cheap as $1,000 is dwarfed by the red tape it takes to buy it. Jumping through hoops to get a deal would make the red tape much worse and the whole process cost even more, so yeah, sometimes you pay full price because it's cheaper than trying to get a discount.

Re:who cares

[vlueboy]

GIMP is a terminally retarded toy. Every second you use it it feels like fighting with windmills. Say you have a greylevel png you want to turn into transparency (for use as avatar). Clone the channel as alpha? Well... simple tasks must not have straight-forward solutions, hurray for teh gimp, you are the king!

If someone has any recommendations for a capable photo editor, that can work with logos, etc., please, I'm all ears. F**k teh gimp!

I was trying to draw a white square around a logo yesterday. My two standby's let me down:
Paint for Windows 7 killed the gif file by adding ugly, unprofessional dithering that killed my site logo. I noticed just seconds before uploading to the site.

Loaded up trusty GIMPshop since I recall it didn't previously mess up my transparencies as badly as paint... and didn't find the outline tool... wait, you there's not even a straight LINE tool in it, google? you must combine obscure selection tools with some hidden stroke options just to draw a few lines? what? why does paint do this better?
supposedly this is because gimp is an editor rather than a drawing program. No wonder they take us free software fans as a joke. This is not something I'd notice day to day until I ran into it, and I'd lose face to a professional asking for help skirting the PS price barrier

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. You obviously haven't compared the two side-by-side. On my system (2.34 Ghz QuadCore) GIMP takes 8 seconds to load from cache. Photoshop CS6 opens in half the time, just 4 seconds. Filters on a 3648x2736 image: 64 pixel Gaussian Blur: GIMP 7.6 seconds, PS 0.8 seconds. Add RGB noise, maximum setting: GIMP 6 seconds, PS 0.7 seconds. Not to mention GIMP doesn't have GPU acceleration so panning and zooming is noticeably laggy and slow. After you undo a filter, it takes almost a full second for the image to change. You can actually see the previews image scan down from top to bottom. On Photoshop the undo operation is instant. Just about anything you do in GIMP takes longer.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

The last download that Adobe put for CS2 had a generic code that anyone could register under, as it is now considered unsupported. It was changed because there isn't a registration server for CS2 anymore. That will get rid of your nag right there. (You're probably using the "demo" registration code on an older download.) This current download was intended for people who bought the software under the original licence. But some kind of snafu made it publicly available for free, which (knowing how the internet works) made it pretty much impossible to take back.

And yes, you're right, CS2 is buggy and crashy. But if you bothered looking, there's a CS2.1 (or some decimal version) patch. If you search for "CS2 Update", you will find a link to download that from Adobe as well. it apparently gets rid of 99.9% of the bugs that cause crashes and makes it a much more well behaved program.

Thus:Yey! A "free" Photoshop that works!

As for GIMP? Currently Photoshop is still better in terms of usability. But I feel sooner or later GIMP will get there. If Blender can do it for 3D vs Max & Maya (yes, I'd say it's that good), then GIMP definitely has a shot at doing the same for 2D. Particularly if the pace of development keeps up along with some effort to recognize shortcomings and seriously improve the UI.

Re:who cares

[Khyber]

"What kind of system are you editing graphics from where you need to run GIMP from a portable USB drive?"

One that's not in my office, home, or other form of possession.

Next blind question, please.

Re:who cares

[bemymonkey]

Who the fuck still prints? :D

Re:who cares

[jimbo]

Or - you select the brush you want, hold down SHIFT, click where you want the line to start and where you want it to end.

I'm told Photoshop have a similar method.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

CYMK means dead trees. Am I typing this for trees or an electronic display? Electronic Display! Gimp can't do CYMK, and it doesn't output to Daguerreotype either. Wanna know why that's not a problem? Because no one uses Daguerreotype anymore!

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you're a developer using a Mac with a case-sensitive filesystem so Photoshop won't install. (Shit developers in the usual style one expects from Adobe.)

Re:who cares

[wiredlogic]

for 2 features (CMYK and 16bit depth), that I can get by using a few other open source odds and ends in conjunction with Gimp.

Converting 8-bit RGB into CMYK doesn't maintain the same color information as natively editing in CMYK.

There is a cheaper alternative to Photoshop if you need those features: run Corel PhotoPaint in a VM.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

non-sequitor?

Re:who cares

[Billhead]

Same reason I stopped using it.
Oh, you want to draw a circle around something? Here, select an area with the ellipse tool, fill it a solid color, then go to some menu options and shrink your current selection, then delete what is in you now smaller selection!

Re:who cares

[Bert64]

As you said it's considered unsupported therefore it will never be updated or bugfixed, so you'd better be sure you completely trust every file you open with it... Adobe don't exactly have a good reputation for writing secure software.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly!

Some twat complained about start-up and registration time.
Ok, how that the whole user experience in gimp is 5 times slower, things that are braindead simple in PS need some weird quirks. Oh,,install a plugin. No thanks.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Pixelmator has been doing quite well in the Mac App Store. It's #11 on the top grossing list, while Photoshop (which costs more than twice as much) is down at #30. Corel only has the "lite" version of Paint Shop in MAS, which doesn't even show up in the "top" lists.

Re:who cares

[mrfaithful]

I expect lots of small companies are in the same boat I am. I have 7 perfectly working CS4 installations, but now I need an 8th. Since backwards compatibility is a crapshoot that could burn you at the worst possible time I have to upgrade everyone to Creative Cloud just to get that 8th license. I could try and ebay a copy of CS4 but since licenses are not transferrable, legally that's no better than pirating. My solution so far is to take one license from my own machine since I don't need it much and am more likely to do stuff with ImageMagick than start PS. But that only buys me time. If I can't get a solid migration plan soon I'll be stuck paying £5k+ a YEAR just to use Adobe's glitchy shit.

Re:who cares

[__aasehi2499]

That is a nice program, and may free a person from Lightroom who hasn't converted all their CR2/RAW files to DNG. But, it doesn't help with color bit depth need in GIMP.

Re:who cares

[mark-t]

Gimp is 5x slower for you? Weird. I find literally the opposite.

Re:who cares

[bmo]

>One should not have to do that in the first place...

I know this is tough, but CS2 is free for download. I would think a "registration" through a temporary email address is a small enough hurdle to step over. Would you rather that Adobe take it out of the free downloads?

Adobe is evil in a lot of ways, but the registration "requirement" for CS2 isn't one of them.

>CS2 crashes in XP

FLP is a de-goobered XP. Try it.

--
BMO

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not an avid or even casual Gimp user, but a quick search yields these:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CMYK_support_in_The_GIMP#About_CMYK_color_and_Gimp

http://askubuntu.com/questions/114858/how-to-convert-image-to-cmyk-in-gimp

(plugin)
http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml

What say you?

Re:who cares

[darnkitten]

I sometimes go to client's houses or places of business. It helps to have an option you can just plug into their PC to demonstrate why the print won't come out the same as it appears on their mis-calibrated monitors.

Re:who cares

[phantomfive]

That's pretty cool and a great use.

unacceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole installer hi-jacking is unacceptable. "OpenSource" just loose serious credibility.

Re:unacceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

lose*

Re:unacceptable

[rourin_bushi]

ITYM lost*

Re:unacceptable

[Deathlizard]

It Gets worse.

Just about every popular Open Source program out there is Drive by Kidnapped. Just search for any Open source program on google and bing and see what I mean.

VLC media player, 7Zip and firefox seem to be the popular drive-by bait and switch downlaods I seen. There's even a chromium browser ripoff that impersonates google chrome, albeit with a square chrome logo instead of a round one.

Re:unacceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

It can go either way.

Re:unacceptable

[HiThere]

Are you saying that www.videolan.org/vlc/index.htmlâZ isn't the home page for VLC? That's what came up as the first entry in when I did a Google search, and it claims to be the official page.

Re:unacceptable

[LoRdTAW]

I believe he is talking about the "Ads related to vlc" which are at the top of the google search. In my search I get two:

Download VLC Player 2013 - Vlc.downloadster.org

and

VLC Player 2012 Download - VLC - Get The Latest Version

I am not clicking them but I am sure they contain bogus versions with crapware attached.

Re:unacceptable

[Nimey]

Your mom's got loose credibility.

Re:unacceptable

[Nimey]

Or similar ads that are on various download sites. You know, those sites that have three or four DOWNLOAD NOW buttons but only one of them gets you the program you want, while the others are for pure crapware.

Re:unacceptable

[DAldredge]

I searched for VLC, 7-Zip, and Firefox on Bing and the official site was the first one in the results list each time and was labeled as such.

Re:unacceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

Download VLC Player 2013 - Vlc.downloadster.org

Heh, downloadster. Yeah, the name practically oozes respectability :)

Re:unacceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

XCF-only save is unacceptable enough.

Re:unacceptable

[Bert64]

And the root cause of these problems is the crude way applications are obtained and installed on windows... Users who are running a full open source stack will generally just choose their apps from the package manager and have them installed automatically from a clean source.

Re:unacceptable

[MysteriousPreacher]

Handbrake is a better example. Whenever I search via Google I'm seeing both sponsored links and search engine gaming to sell Handbrake in a wrapper. A company named Aimersoft figures highly in this behaviour.

Re:unacceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

Installer? Installer? 'tar xf' is my installer.

Re:unacceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

People actually follow those links? Amazing.

Re:unacceptable

[Deathlizard]

As someone else already pointed out, It's the Ads. If you have ad blocker the top site will be the correct one.

Many people do not differentiate between the ads and the real links, so they click on the first link that shows up, downloades it, and get hammered.

Right now, in the past 30 days, I've dealt with 6 Viruses like Sirifef, TDSS and various FBI Viruses. This week alone, I've cleaned 9 PC's that had Drive By Downloader Infections and I usually keep that pace every week. I'd say I've cleaned roughly 30+ this past 30 days. If that's not a sign where things are going I don't know what is.

Re:unacceptable

[Deathlizard]

As someone else already pointed out, It's the Ads. If you have ad blocker the top site will be the correct one. Many people do not differentiate between the ads and the real links, so they click on the first link that shows up, downloades it, and get hammered. This is why Ad blocking is so important these days, because Ad firms won't do the job of filtering malicious ads

Right now, in the past 30 days, I've dealt with 6 Viruses like Sirifef, TDSS and various FBI Viruses. This week alone, I've cleaned 9 PC's that had Drive By Downloader Infections and I usually keep that pace every week. I'd say I've cleaned roughly 30+ this past 30 days. If that's not a sign where things are going I don't know what is.

Re:unacceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a better idea...

Try typing a goddamned URL for a change instead of searching for everything. Google Search is not the page address. That's the mistake everyone's grandmother makes when they open a browser for the first time.

If you want VLC, type videolan.org. If you want 7-Zip, type 7-zip.org. If you want Firefox, type firefox.com. And don't use the search box! Use the one at the top left!

Jeez. It's like the zombie version of the Eternal September around here. Just when you thought it was gone and had stopped twitching, the guy next to you that you thought wasn't a zombie turns around and starts gnawing on your face because he got infected with the stupid a while back.

Also, I have a lawn, and you need to extricate yourself from it.

Re:unacceptable

[mrchaotica]

Maybe it's finally time for ad-blockers to start blocking text ads too...

Re:unacceptable

[Compaqt]

What's an FBI virus? A virus released by the FBI into the wild so they can snoop on people without a warrant?

Re:unacceptable

[Deathlizard]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qR3D-Jx6FQ

Good!

[PhrostyMcByte]

As a fellow SourceForge user, I was also outraged when I noticed this. SourceForge used to be the go-to place if you had an Open Source project you wanted hosted. They've lacked focus for some time, making all sorts of failed changes that only bloated their surface area without bringing any actual benefit. Perhaps the screws are to them to become profitable. Slashdot's semi-recent foray into HTML5 randomness and video-ads-as-articles shows similar direction.

They've lost a lot of their user base, are bleeding what they've still got, and potential new users are almost universally going to GitHub and the like. It's a bit depressing.

Re:Good!

[Kardos]

Someone should mirror sourceforge so when they do implode, the code/documents from any dormant projects isn't lost

Re:Good!

[phantomfive]

This is exactly the reason I stopped using source forge. Which is a shame, because in virtually every other way, it is better than Github.

Re:Good!

[Admiral_Bob2000]

Currently I only have one active project on SourceForge - however it's a Java-based one (I distribute both precompiled .jar and a source .zip archive), and as of yesterday there appears to be no modifications to the files repository regarding adware or installers.

I'll keep a watch in the meantime if SF attempt to insert adware, although I doubt they'll try. But any new future project of mine, especially if it supplies native MS Windows binaries, will be hosted elsewhere.

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

GitHub doesn't serve quite the same purpose as SourceForge; GitHub is focused on people willing to compile code and developers while SourceForge tries to handle that demographic while still being friendly to end-users who just want a binary and a manual. Google Code is a closer competitor. And there's probably some others I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Re:Good!

[mrchaotica]

And there's probably some others I'm not thinking of at the moment.

http://savannah.nongnu.org/ ?

Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate p

[Anonymous Coward]

What's this? A troll to dare abandonment of Slashdot too?

Why not Gopher?

[chr1st1anSoldier]

bring back the gopher! I might have to host a Gopher server just to put Gimp on there.

That's the first smart move since

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the first smart move they've made since the whole export Vs. save Vs. save as Vs. overwrite Vs. CTRL-S thing.

Lol, note.

[Anonymous Coward]

Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent.

Good to know I can blame the decline of two great sites on the same company.

Re:Lol, note.

[Nimey]

To be fair, Slashdot's been going downhill for longer than it's been owned by Dice. It's just that they're the ones who drove Taco away.

Re:Lol, note.

[Anonymous Coward]

Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent.

Good to know I can blame the decline of two great sites on the same company.

Efficiency!

Yeah....

[Tteddo]

Just saw this today. Guess SourceForge has gone to the dark side. Sad Really.

Re:Yeah....

[HiThere]

Happened quite awhile ago. Question is, "Where's a good alternative?"

Re:Yeah....

[Anonymous Coward]

Github seems to be the closest.

Re:Yeah....

[HiThere]

Github's a good alternative to SourceForge, but I meant what's a good alternative to Slashdot. Preferably something more like it used to be.

bravo

[roc97007]

Just... bravo.

SorceForge jumped the shark long ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

...unless you're running an iron-clad adblocker. It's like Vegas on every page and especially for downloads.

This is why people have been migrating to GitHub and bigger projects have been consolidating into major OSS players that can afford their own servers/presence (ex: Apache, Mozilla, etc). I'm surprised so few established projects use BT as their primary distribution channel considering all you need to do is run a BT daemon on your server to seed it. In the worst case, you use the same amount of bandwidth, while in the best others reduce your load.

All web companies that act as intermediaries eventually become the ad-infested hell-holes that they replaced as they try to turn greater and greater profits out of their properties. Tucows and most gaming news sites from the late 90s are prime examples.

Re:SorceForge jumped the shark long ago...

[mythosaz]

I'm surprised so few established projects use BT as their primary distribution channel considering all you need to do is run a BT daemon on your server to seed it

Well, first you need to have the majority of your clients download a BT client, from a similar collection of shady sites with DOWNLOAD NOW arrows pointing everywhere. Of course you can host a copy of a small BT client on your server, but which one? The tiny one with obvious pirate search ads at the top, or the one wrapped in a similar bloatware wrapper? Will the BT installer get past the file-download-proxy-scanner at your office? Maybe.

Then, likely, you need to have all of your corporate customers wait until they get home to download your software, because running a BT client in any big company gets you fired. Then, when they bring the software in on USB, they can get permission from security to insert it into a machine without getting audited.

Now you can install GIMP, if you have rights on your machine.

Re:SorceForge jumped the shark long ago...

[undefinedreference]

If you work for J Random Megacorp with iron-clad IT policies, why are you using GIMP for image manipulation? It doesn't sound like this would be to the exclusion of other methods.

Re:SorceForge jumped the shark long ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you work for J Random Megacorp with iron-clad IT policies, why are you using GIMP for image manipulation? It doesn't sound like this would be to the exclusion of other methods.

Probably because IT decided the job description and/or level did not justify licensed software so the user had to acquire something on his own under the radar.

Re:SorceForge jumped the shark long ago...

[couchslug]

"...unless you're running an iron-clad adblocker. "

I treat SourceForge the way I treat torrent sites (and everywhere else) and block everything that may annoy me. I assume they are in business for a profit, that it is rational for them to run adverts, and I do the rational thing by blocking those adverts.

They have their agenda and don't give a fuck about me. I have my agenda and don't give a fuck about them.

It's like the US Republican Party

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you're ideologically pure, then you're a sellout and should be ostracized by everyone with true values.

So nobody can make much traction and the other side wins.

Re:It's like the US Republican Party

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, most of the establishment aren't ideologically pure- the ones that're impure are doing the ostracising, by the by.... But then I don't expect some Libtard on /. to get that... I see you got down-modded, as you should. I expect I will too for this one...but, hey, it's only Karma, right?

Alternate host?

[El_Muerte_TDS]

sf.net was the only project host which still offered release downloads. Not every project can afford a deviated download solutions for all their releases.
Now that sf.net has been compromised, what alternative are there?

It's quite ridiculous considering that the sf.net download mirrors are sponsored.

Re:Alternate host?

[Anonymous Coward]

github.com/randomuser/randomproject/archive/tag.tar.gz

Re:Alternate host?

[ColdWetDog]

"deviated download solution"?

Mind sharing a link with us?

Re:Alternate host?

[Trogre]

This is a big problem for Windows and Mac users. Linux users who don't stick close to the bleeding edge aren't affected quite as much, since we get the vast majority of FOSS software from distro repos.

Want to download widgetSmasherX?

sudo yum/apt-get install widgetSmasherX
Done.

Likewise for Android users, who just install via the F-Droid repo.

Bleeding-edge Linux users will most likely be fine, as they will be savvy enough to find their software elsewhere and compile if needs be.

Re:Alternate host?

[shutdown -p now]

CodePlex?

Re:Alternate host?

[evilviper]

Now that sf.net has been compromised, what alternative are there?

http://www.berlios.de/ - Has been around forever, and is somewhat popular.

Or you could check the list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_software_hosting_facilities

Re:Alternate host?

[odie5533]

I use Github Releases.

You could also use Internet Archive, which offers unlimited file storage and bandwidth. Yes, you can use them for this.

Re:Alternate host?

[odie5533]

BerliOS ran into financial troubles recently. Not sure if they'd be a good pick for long term hosting.

Re:Alternate host?

[Anonymous Coward]

talk about your flamebait

Re:Alternate host?

[evilviper]

A couple minutes on WP or their website would give you the answer. It isn't 2-years overdue to close, for sure.

Re:Alternate host?

[Anonymous Coward]

Savannah of course. It has been around forever and it works.

Re:Alternate host?

[wiredlogic]

While it's not the same as the old Google code hosted downloads you can still put binaries on Google drive (The account is already active) and link to it from the 'code home page.

Re:Alternate host?

[CBravo]

Funny how it is missing Freshmeat.net / Freecode.com.

Re:Alternate host?

[evilviper]

Freshmeat is just a directory and search engine. They don't host the projects...

Re:Alternate host?

[CBravo]

Ah... And fwiw also owned by Dice (when I looked into it). As far as I know there has always been a difference, per project, on how much hosting actually took place on SourceForge.

I am most interested in finding good stuff. Anyone can host a tgz.

Why not GitHub

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical open sores; behind on the times

Re:Why not GitHub

[elijahu]

Ouch. I'm not sure I want to download anything from a site with open sores. Are they using some sort of new HTML5 <oozy/> tag? Is there a browser plugin to protect against that?

Third Party Offers

[Anonymous Coward]

What is happening with Sourceforge is truly sad. Some of these third party offers are no more than browser hijackers.

-Ron Scubadiver, Independent Photojournalist

Not. Acceptable.

[BaldingByMicrosoft]

Please inform your "corporate parent" that installer hijacking is a dick move.

Re:Not. Acceptable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please inform your "corporate parent" that installer hijacking is a dick move.

I'm sure we will be informed that they don't care.

Re:Not. Acceptable.

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt they will inform anyone a second time. It was in the clickwrap license when you joined this system.

How would an installer work....

[mark-t]

... if you were downloading source code?

Do they have separate installers for every conceivable operating system or something?

Re:How would an installer work....

[Anonymous Coward]

People usually don't compile Gimp for Windows. Instead they take the installer provided by the project, and modified by Sf...

FTP?

[Bogtha]

Why on earth would you use FTP in this day and age? It's garbage designed for pre-Internet networks. It doesn't even define how file listings work, clients have to use heuristics to guess at how to interpret them. It's got a weird two-connection model that doesn't play nice with firewalls. It should have died a long time ago.

Re:FTP?

[viperidaenz]

It doesn't support tracking cookies.

Re:FTP?

[rourin_bushi]

I truly hope they don't migrate to FTP only. Using it as their *canonical* download might be ok, but as plenty of other people have mentioned, FTP is a bit outdated. Really, if you're already migrating to a dedicated host, why not use HTTP? And put a BT link up for the majority of us with a client already installed.

(using BT as the sole source isn't really a good solution for folks who don't have admin rights to install a BT client, such as on my work box here)

Re:FTP?

[godrik]

Though nowadays you just click on ftp://... link and get the right file right away. So I am not sure the file listing problem matters that much.

Re:FTP?

[mythosaz]

To Do: Add tracking cookie support to FTP.

Re:FTP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on earth would you use FTP in this day and age? It's garbage designed for pre-Internet networks. It doesn't even define how file listings work, clients have to use heuristics to guess at how to interpret them. It's got a weird two-connection model that doesn't play nice with firewalls. It should have died a long time ago.

What would you use?

Re:FTP?

[elijahu]

"Nowadays"? I remember that as being a feature of Mosaic circa 1993.

Re:FTP?

[tibman]

Yeah, i doubt that something called the File Transfer Protocol even works these days : )

Side-note: They still offer an http download link about 50px left of the ftp one.

Re:FTP?

[drinkypoo]

Why on earth would you use FTP in this day and age?

Maybe their HTTP host doesn't support resuming downloads. Maybe they have free quota on their FTP. Maybe it works so who cares?

Re:FTP?

[Anonymous Coward]

HTTP. Dumbass.

Re:FTP?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't want to download based on the age of the protocol slinging the bits to your machine? That seems a bit eccentric to say the least.

Re:FTP?

[Bogtha]

Tracking cookies don't magically appear all by themselves. They are added by the server. They would only be added to a GIMP download if the GIMP servers were configured to do so.

And given that the link went to a normal web page delivered over HTTP that contained an FTP link, if they wanted to serve you a tracking cookie, you would have it already.

Re:FTP?

[Bogtha]

That's always been the case. And it's still the case today that if you want to browse an FTP site, whichever client you are using has to guess at how to interpret the list listings. I was using it as an example of how fundamentally broken the protocol is.

Re:FTP?

[91degrees]

Because it's old enough and common enough that clients and firewalls are designed to handle the protocol, so even with all its drawbacks, it's still pretty reliable.

Re:FTP?

[Bogtha]

That's just it, you can't write a client to handle the protocol. Or, more specifically, you can, but that protocol doesn't include the information necessary to write a client. The protocol was designed to be typed by hand and interpreted by a human, not software. When an FTP client shows you a file listing, it is guessing at how to interpret the file listings.

As for firewalls, no, there are problems there as well. Firewalls have to actively watch for FTP connections and treat them specially, and even when they do, they can't get it completely right because the protocol is fundamentally broken.

Don't take my word for it, read what the people who have implemented FTP have to say on the matter: 1 2.

Re:FTP?

[91degrees]

You don't need the client to handle the protocol. You just need it to handle the particular implementation GIMP is using. Same with a firewall.

As long as it's supported by near enough all fiewalls and clients then it will work.

Re:FTP?

[maswan]

We do, and we much prefer HTTP over FTP since we do clever caching and redirects for HTTP. See: http://ftp.acc.umu.se/about/index.html

We are talking to the GIMP folks to readjust their links.

Re:FTP?

[serviscope_minor]

Did you actually read the links you posted?

Given that it's acting as an anonymous download only option, none except the firewall (very irritating but solved by stateful firewalls) point apply. Especially as the previous alternative was HTTP.

Insecure: doesn't matter. You're downloading an open file anyway. And no worse than HTTP.

No way of setting modification times: doesn't matter, no one's going to be uploading.

No way of determining name encoding: doesn't matter, users are following a link in, not reading listings.

Directory listings: doesn't matter. Users are following a link. substantially better than HTTP anyway in this regard.

Metadata: doesn't matter for anonymous downloads.

Yeah, FTP is a big steaming pile, but for such downloads only, most don't apply and for the rest, the lage amount of engineering work has already been put into firewalls, so it doesn't matter anyway.

Re:FTP?

[Megane]

I want them to put up a Gopher site for downloads!

Re:FTP?

[Anonymous Coward]

I browse on my Vectrex you insensitive clod!

Isn't the installer opt-in?

[edxwelch]

I have a project on Sourceforge and it just uses it's own installer (Nullsoft). So, I would assume that you have a choice to use the adware installer, or not if you don't want to.

Re:Isn't the installer opt-in?

[jonwil]

If its anything like some of the other spyware installers I have seen, its simply a wrapper around the user-provided installer.
So you run their installer which does all the spyware stuff and then runs the real installer exe.

Re:Isn't the installer opt-in?

[MtHuurne]

This post (found in the comments of TFA) contains more details. The bundling only happens if the project owner requests it. And the user can reject installing anything other than the application they came for.

I still think it's a bad idea though: apparently some projects did accept this (they get a cut of the revenue) and as a result users might become wary of downloading things from SourceForge. Trust is easier lost than gained. In fact, some users are so paranoid about installers that we've been releasing our Windows build of openMSX as a ZIP file in addition to an installer for several years now.

Three strikes against torrent for smaller projects

[tepples]

True, Linux distributions and OpenOffice/LibreOffice appear to be the biggest users of torrent among free software projects. I can guess three reasons for this. First, not all free software projects have releases as big as those, and torrent isn't really optimized for small files. Second, people not already using a torrent client or a GNU/Linux distribution that preinstalls a torrent client would have to download both a torrent client and the project. Third, a lot of organizations block torrent but not regular HTTPS or HTTP downloads, and even a user who can run a torrent client might not be able to open an incoming TCP port. Cloud delivery networks (CDNs) give some of the same benefits as torrent hosting without these same problems.

I do and so do millions of others

[dutchwhizzman]

I used to use Adobe software until very recently, because my main usage for graphics software was editing my own photographs. I take photos with a proper camera that will use a data format that has more than 8 bits per pixel and does not have lossy compression in the device. Fortunately, darkroom is now good enough to use so I won't have to. If I ever should want to "photoshop" my photos, fortunately Gimp will have RAW support in the next release. To be honest, I haven't looked at CMYK yet, but I really hope that it will have support for that too.

The arrogance that somehow millions of people that are actually prepared to pay for good software because it has features that FOSS doesn't have aren't potential users is really beyond my comprehension. Cost savings aren't just in a license fee, they are in the quality of the final product, fetching a better price, and in the time saved having a better work flow. Darktable has "just started" if you compare it to the time gimp has been around and already I see several serious photo enthusiast people use it for serious work. Since I've got it running with openCL, I haven't started Adobe Lightroom, even though Darktable is still in the "very active development" stage. Again, I don't know about CMYK since I'm not in the printing business, but given the amount of people forking out money to Adobe, I'm sure there will be plenty of shops willing to try Gimp and even donate if it will have proper CMYK and professional color profile support. Get of your high horse and start looking at improvements that will make the app better than what's available. Don't tell people they don't need it just because you yourself don't; it's degrading and makes FOSS look bad. FOSS has a good place in the server room and partially on mobile. The reason it hasn't on the desktop is partially because apps like this just aren't "the best you can get". Visicalc and WordPerfect sold millions of hardware+OS kits, just because of the one application, the rest was mediocre at best. Linux needs a few of those applications too to finally push Windows off it's pedestal.

Windows binaries

[tepples]

I think "release downloads" was supposed to include binaries for the Windows operating system. It's sort of hard to get end users to buy Microsoft Visual Studio in order to compile your application from source in order to try it.

Re:Windows binaries

[Anonymous Coward]

right. different terminology. i'd call those binaries and not a release.

The SourceForge Death Spiral

[benjfowler]

Am I the only one who noticed that while once upon a time, SourceForge were great, that it's declining popularity (no thanks to Google Code and Github) and falling website hits forced them to put up more, spammier, scammier ads?

Then about a year or so ago, they went full-AOL, and the standards of the ads dropped dramatically, with misleading 'download button' ads leading to dodgy downloads; their hits must've dropped further, necessitating even more, even scammier ads.

Looks pretty much like a tailspin to me. Too bad, because Sourceforge was one of the first and best Open Source hosting platforms at one stage.

If I were in charge of it, I'd just take it out behind the shed and put it out of its misery.

Re:The SourceForge Death Spiral

[TechyImmigrant]

You are not alone.

I first hit this when fetching subversion. I think it gave me an Ask Jeeves toolbar pox instead.

Re:The SourceForge Death Spiral

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were in charge, there'd be a differing approach to things. It's been the management of it from the moment VA Linux Systems sold it to it's first new owner that's been the cause of their decline- because they didn't "get" the whole Idea. It's not hard, really, to do this stuff- it's that someone thinks that they need huge profits to run it, when in fact, you just need to break-even or make a small profit. There is no vast fortunes to be had in that space- and every idiot owner since the original have sought to make vast fortunes, trying to strip mine the value out. Doesn't work that way for long. Nothing ever does.

Re:The SourceForge Death Spiral

[geminidomino]

SourceForge were great, that it's declining popularity (no thanks to Google Code and Github) and falling website hits forced them to put up more, spammier, scammier ads?

I don't know. A lot of the sentiment I've seen/heard on the subject inverts that particular cause-effect relationship.

Re:Three strikes against torrent for smaller proje

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes sense, though. You'd still offer HTTP and FTP downloads while making BT the first choice. Those that don't have BT clients would get them. Most people have them, anyway.

But the "cloud" delivery will either cost more or eventually slide down the slippery slope toward SourceForge and Tucows. We're trying to be economical for a project that is likely not funded well enough to pay much in the way of services.

Try Savannah - The FSF version of Sourceforge

[Anonymous Coward]

The FSF run their own project hosting website at http://savannah.nongnu.org/

I suspect it's about to become rather more popular.

Dancing the Dice Death

[__aasehi2499]

Too bad Slashdot has them as a dance partner in this slow march to hell.

Re:Three strikes against torrent for smaller proje

[tepples]

Those that don't have BT clients would get them. Most people have them, anyway.

Any reliable stats as to this?

Yes! I heartily agree

[erroneus]

That bundling of crapware really pissed me off badly. Open source things are not supposed to be doing that.

Dice and some real concrete steps

[augustz]

I was user 341 at Sourceforge, 14 years ago.
I always liked the SF.net idea. This is kinda sad to see happening.

But enough crying over spilt milk.

* Don't use Dice, don't hire folks using Dice.
* Move your own projects off sourceforge.
* If you need a project from sourceforge email them and ask them to avoid the download jacking by moving their project if possible
* Support other providers who play fair.
* If you use a website reputation tool, mark sf appropriately.

Re:Dice and some real concrete steps

[Anonymous Coward]

Good advice, I did this. Pretty much moved everything I had from SF to Github or my own server.

Sourceforge

[fred911]

You should be ashamed. An installer? Unfreekin believable.

An abomination.

Malicious,Computing/IT (Global)

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why Content Keeper classifies sourceforge as Malicious,Computing/IT (Global) and why my corporate firewall has blocked access to it.

i hate 3rd party installer

[Anonymous Coward]

one installed some two a 3rd party program even though I thought I unchecked them. One was a backup program or something. another one installed silently. all of a sudden I saw a program update occurring like one minute after I ran the main installer. i used system restore to delete the unwanted programs.

very bad. Impressed Dice ran an anti-Dice article

[raymorris]

I agree with most of what has been said.

As nasty as that is, I'm pleasantly surprised Slashdot (Dice) ran this. Somebody has character to approve this story. I hope it doesn't get them fired for telling the truth.

Uncool

[Anonymous Coward]

Libre/OSS has no business being in bed with ad networks. It taints the ecosystem. I use libre/oss precisely to avoid commercial (mis)behaviour in software. As a policy, I block all ads, tracking, web beacons, http(s) referring, etc. I like a clean ecosystem, not one tainted with the constant desire for money. I use and support independent GNU/Linux/libre/oss software vendors to keep commercial-free software alive. I will gladly donate to a worthy cause.

Exactly!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what too many on /. don't get. It's not about whether or not YOU can access the appropriate installer. Of course you can, else chances are greater than not that you wouldn't be here.

The question is about the ordinary folk and I'm sorry, they aren't going to use bittorrent.

Re:Exactly!

[FatdogHaiku]

This is what too many on /. don't get. It's not about whether or not YOU can access the appropriate installer. Of course you can, else chances are greater than not that you wouldn't be here.

The question is about the ordinary folk and I'm sorry, they aren't going to use bittorrent.

Last time I checked, GIMP was not a program for "ordinary folk". Not that Photoshop is either. I do like the direct FTP distribution idea, if they can work a browser they can get the file... as long as someone is paying for the bandwidth.

Re:Exactly!

[neokushan]

I'm surprised modern browsers don't just natively support the torrent protocol in some fashion. Even if they don't seed, it'd still make file distribution a lot easier for smaller entities that can maybe throw up an FTP but couldn't handle full distribution.

Re:Exactly!

[I'm just joshin]

Opera does.

-J

Re:Exactly!

[tverbeek]

I know plenty of "ordinary folk" who might want to download GIMP: people who use computers as a means to do stuff they want to do, and that doesn't mean dicking around with strange download sites on the internet. I recommend it frequently to artists I know who want to do basic photoshoppy stuff, and the fact that they don't already have something for that demonstrates that they're not particularly experienced with where and how to get software online.

Re:Exactly!

[Anonymous Coward]

At least Firefox is busy removing and breaking existing features, in the name of "improved user experience." It does not want to add something new that somebody actually might find useful. I have no idea what Chrome does, as I have never used it.

Re:Exactly!

[FatdogHaiku]

Of all the people I know, the only ones that want to do photoshoppy stuff are indeed artists... not counting non ordinary techies who manipulate images all the time, you know... us. The rest all want to crop a photo, fix some red eye, or compose a card for a birthday or Christmas. Giving THOSE ordinary folks GIMP or Photoshop is like giving someone a class 4 laser to heat a cup-of-noodles, they can do it if they learn how but there are easier ways to reach their goal. Most of them have software from either a printer CD or a camera CD that will have a basic photo editor simple enough to work for almost anything they need... The minute you get into layers and adding or removing items or people from images we are no longer talking about ordinary people. For those few GIMP might be a good fit, but the last time I used it the UI needed the same amount of dedication and rigor as Photoshop... Good, Powerful Software, but not for the ordinary computer user.

Shame on sourceforge

[drwho]

It's not like bandwidth is expensive any more, GIMP can easily put up its own FTP server. I'd rather see it as bittorrent and maybe that will happen. In any case, sourceforge has outlived its utility, and is being run into the ground.

Goodbye, SourceForge

[Animats]

I have three projects on SourceForge. Fortunately, none of them release an executable, so SourceForge's drive-by installer doesn't corrupt my projects. But I'll move one project off of SourceForge soon.

Is GitHub still OK?

sourceforge is getting worse everytime I go there

[tota]

Sourceforge was meant to help open-source software, not hinder its use! What happened?

I like to post detailed instructions on how to do things that include cut&pasteable commands (if anything, for my own sake), and since sourceforge removed direct download links to source files I have had to mirror them on my own servers just so that the instructions can be used. Sad. How many projects are now wasting their valuable time working around sourceforge's decisions?

That's why they call it the GIMP

[Anonymous Coward]

Gimp is another word for cripple.

Source Who?

[dmomo]

They're fizzling and they know it. I have not interacted with them in about 8 years. This year, I started getting emails from them about my "projects", which were also abandoned years ago. It smelled like a last ditch effort to bring people back to the site. They're just not that relevant anymore.

Wait what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use sourceforge occasionally, but I always just grab the source tarball. (If I didn't need the source, I'd just be using the package manager.) Are they bundling crap with the source now too? I really never noticed that SF looked any worse than it always did.

Since when is GIMP an alternative to Photoshop?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is ZERO way that GIMP can be considered an alternative to Photoshop. Its not even in the same category as Photoshop. This is like claiming that Paint is a replacement for Photoshop.

There are plenty of things that GIMP can do, that Photoshop will never be able to do. Same when looking backwards. Also while GIMP is powerful, it is the most annoyingly and ultra-frustrating user-unfriendly tool you could ever use. Photoshop on the other hand, is very user friendly.

So claiming that GIMP is an alternative to Photoshop shows complete ignorance about BOTH tools. While it may sound like they are both similar, they are COMPLETELY different in almost every way you look at them. They are both designed for completely different tasks.

The End

[JamesA]

When I find an interesting project still hosted on SourceForge it's almost a sure sign it's dormant and/or dead. It's become the seedy back alley of the FOSS movement.

Combine it with download.com and let them die together.

All hail to the mighty Octocat.

Yes, it's the ads

[Roman Mamedov]

This was the final straw that made me delete my SF.net account http://s.lowendshare.com/10/1383891038.308.2013-10-22T054551Z-sfnet.png

Trust no more

[Tekoneiric]

Source Forge used to be good but I stopped trusting the site when I got a virus from one of it's downloads. When a site becomes more about selling ads rather than the tech it's time to move to something different.

What are these adverts you speak of ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see any adverts.....

Ever, anywhere but then I use Squid to strip out all the advertising crap from websites so I just get to see the clean web, advert free......

Install SourceForce installer to read /.

[Anonymous Coward]

Will I have to install the SourceForge installer to read /. in the future?
Can I opt-out?

Re:sourceforge is getting worse everytime I go the

[Bert64]

Removing direct links is something that REALLY annoys me... I have never liked downloading within the browser, especially in the days of dialup and netscape 4.x which always seemed to crash at 95% and didn't support resume.

Also what they fail to consider is who downloads open source code... A lot of users have hosted linux servers and will install various things onto them, and most home users have connections where the upstream is significantly slower than the downstream. If i'm setting something up on a colocated linux box i want a link that i can paste into an ssh session and download with wget so the (presumably well connected) colo box can download the file quickly. I don't want to slowly download it to my own machine, and then even more slowly upload it again.

Not Surprising...

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped using sourceforge myself for this very reason.

There are ads on Sourceforge?

[Bryan Bytehead]

Who knew?

Ad Block Plus FTW!

Installers that install much more than what I asked for, on the other hand...

Speaking of bittorrent, I updated Utorrent recently and found out that it really wanted to install Search Protection.

No thanks!

Not that utorrent can't seem to remember where it installed itself last time, (didn't it used to be truly portable???!), but to be installing crap like that without even asking?

NO CS2 is not free

[Anonymous Coward]

CS2 is not free

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2013/01/07/download-adobe-cs2-applications-for-free/

Great!

[nightsky30]

Kudos to them for standing up for a good cause and the principles they believe in. It's nice to hear someone is actually looking out for the good of the community rather than fscking it.

Doesn't have to be ironclad

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using the massively outdated fanboy/easylist adblocking and annoyance tracking protection lists for IE and I hardly notice anything.

Github competitor

[Parker Lewis]

Why not turn Sourceforge in a Github competitor, providing more cool stuff, like, by example, Attlasian BitBucket?

Re:sourceforge is getting worse everytime I go the

[Anonymous Coward]

and since sourceforge removed direct download links to source files

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. One can do something like

wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/project/files/project/project-1.2.3.tar.xz/download -O project-1.2.3.tar.xz

and it will automatically select a download mirror and download. The only annoyance is that one has to give the -O option because otherwise the downloaded file will be called "download".

You realize..

[ReAn1985]

You realize that IDs don't necessarily stamp the age of a /. reader, just the age of the account.

I've been reading /. since 1998 but I only got around to making an account in 2005. It's very possible that someone at 1mill ID could have seen the "Good Ol' Days" of /.

But now you can feel good about yourself Mr. AC, you've managed to look like an ass while attempting to discredit someone's comments. Good for you.

Archaic Tech

[Anonymous Coward]

FTP is grossly outdated. I'd prefer GitHub.