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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.
Get a torrent up, many of us will seed for the community.
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!
Sourceforge is garbage now.
I can't get enough iLivid installs! That and another Ask! toolbar! Sign me up!
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
"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?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
This whole installer hi-jacking is unacceptable. "OpenSource" just loose serious credibility.
GIMP can't do CMYK, so WHO CARES??
The majority of people that do graphics for web, not print?
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.
Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent.
Good to know I can blame the decline of two great sites on the same company.
Just saw this today. Guess SourceForge has gone to the dark side. Sad Really.
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.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
...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.
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.
People who don't want to have to pay a monthly Photoshop bill care...
Please inform your "corporate parent" that installer hijacking is a dick move.
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.
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.
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.