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Ask Slashdot: Where Do You Get (or Share) News About Open Source Projects?

Posted by timothy on from the just-start-typing-random-ips dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Now that freshmeat.net / freecode.com doesn't accept any updates, I wonder how the Slashdot crowd gets news about new projects, and even new versions of existing projects. For project managers, where could you announce new versions of your project, so that it can reach not just those who already know the project. Freshmeat / Freecode had all the tools to explore and discover projects, see screenshots (a mandatory feature for any software project, even with only a console interface or no interface at all) and go to the homepage of the project. I subscribed years ago to the RSS feed and sometimes found interesting projects this way. You could replace these tools by subscribing to newsletters or feeds from the projects you follow, but that doesn't cover the discovery part." And do any of the major development / hosting platforms for Free / Open Source projects (GitHub, Launchpad, or Slashdot sister-site SourceForge) have tools you find especially useful for skimming projects of interest?

85 comments

  1. Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What's wrong with just googling for stuff

    1. Re:Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      I get all my news and updates from slashdot. It's the only source anyone needs.

    2. Re:Google? by intermelt · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What's wrong with just googling for stuff

      Google only helps if you know what you want. Google doesn't tell you what you want that you didn't know existed. Freshmeat / Freecode was great for this. I always found things I didn't know I needed.

    3. Re:Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What you're saying is true these days. Slashdot is the best source of computing news around, even with the stupid beta site, the bad editors, and the sometimes stupid moderation.

      I used to get my software and programming and open source news from some subreddits and Y Combinator's Hacker News, but I can no longer stand going there. Things have really gone downhill at both places. There's just something totalitarian about their up/down voting. That, and a lot of the people there now are kind of shitbags (a.k.a. hipsters).

      The subreddits I used to read gradually got taken over by little tyrants, who were mainly hipsters, who would down vote (or ban, if they were mods) anyone who said anything even lightly controversial or against the grain. This drove away the best people, which drove away the best submissions and discussion, which made those subreddits useless to me as news sources.

      HN is like the subreddits, but its totalitarianism is totally ingrained into the system at its very core. There are just way the hell too many filthy hipsters there. I'm talking about the extremely hypocritical kind, who never manage to practice what they preach. They insist that freedom is important, but the moment anyone writes something that might be construed as offensive, even in the slightest way possible, they attack without mercy and down vote until the user who dared engage in free speech is banned. HN used to draw in some high-profile participants, which hid the tyranny at first, but I think they got driven away eventually, too. Now the submissions tend to be about social causes rather than technology. Even when technology is involved, the discussion quickly degrades into some of these hipsters going on and on and on and on about racism, or sexism, or homophobia, or transphobia, or even tearing people apart merely for being 'dismissive' or not being 100% complimentary about somebody's shitty work.

      I totally think it's the lack of up/down voting, and far fewer hipsters, that makes Slashdot better, or maybe just the least-worst. The community still submits the content here, and has some say over what gets promoted, but otherwise the discussion is so much freer and we generally don't have to worry about pathetic little tyrant hipsters censoring every single useful comments. I can easily browse at -1 to see everything, including comments that were wrongly modded down, which is something that can't be done easily at Reddit or HN.

      Maybe there's just something about Slashdot that helps keep away the hipsters. What I've found is that every community that attracts hipsters ends up becoming a shitty place for news and discussion, while sites and communities that don't attract hipsters end up with the best stories and the best discussion. Get hipsters out of the equation, and it's possible to discuss real topics and real issues in a realistic way. That means controversial issues are out in the open, instead of being censored.

    4. Re:Google? by stephanruby · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What's wrong with just googling for stuff

      Googling usually works for me, but I browse the results with the image tab. This way, I only take a look at open source projects with actual screenshots.

      In any case, the original question seems to be asked from the point of view of a marketer. A developer will often know where to advertise his open source project for the type of community he's catering for. That's the key. Know your community of users. Know where they hang out and what they read. And once you have a couple of users that recommend your open source project (assuming they like it), then your project will start to gain page rank in Google, and other indexes.

      Just to give you a personal example. As an Android developer, I often hear of relevant open source Android projects I can use on DevAppsDirect, Android-related meetups, StackOverflow questions, and through Google searches. And obviously, if I was a different kind of developer, or if I was a different kind of project manager with a different kind of community/user focus, my sources could be very different.

    5. Re:Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Baddot?

    6. Re:Google? by westlake · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What's wrong with just googling for stuff

      Time.

      Ideally, what you want is a list of projects which are simply and accurately described, not dormant or defunct, and generally regarded as useful or promising in their present state.

    7. Re:Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, but Slashdot has its own ideologies:

      - Linux and Apple good, Microsoft bad
      - copyright assertion bad, piracy good (since digital stuff was meant to be free). Big exception: GPL violations must be vigorously prosecuted
      - patents are bad (this one I mostly agree with)
      - privacy violation by the government for security is totalitarian and alarming, similar techniques by Internet companies is a necessary evil (as a business model)
      - H1-Bs and offshoring of US/Western European jobs to developing companies bad
      - technologies or companies promising to make programming and/or system administration dramatically cheaper and easier = quackery
      etc

      These biases are institutionalized and reflected on a daily basis in choices of stories, summaries, and (especially) moderation, which controls which posts will be read by most readers. If you happen to be on the majority side of these biases, you might not notice. But I find it annoying that thoughtful posts can be modded 0 so that they're well hidden while mindless rants parroting the view of the majority (often with F words that are apparently taken as evidence of passion) are modded up to +5.

    8. Re:Google? by kallen3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As someone pointed out you have to have some idea of the project you are looking for. I have found many software projects on Freshmeat/Freecode just by going there 3 or 4 times a week. Sometimes there will be things listed that I had not given any thought to and then I see it listed there found it intriguing went to the web page and checked it out. Later on I would go back and download it because I would recall months later when the need arised it was there. Trying do that with google, what would be the search string, "New software"? Especially for us not searching for anything specific and just wanted to find new open source software in general.

    9. Re:Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
      Slashdot is full to the brim with Social Media Marketing types who'll make sure any Open Source project news (or anything else that'll compete with their proprietary sponsors) is buried in negativity and FUD. It's impossible to discuss the real merits of any news for nerds that actually matters here any more.

      Slashdot's not alone in that, of course. Social media is too big and too cheap a way of getting eyeballs to be ignored, especially with viral and astroturfing techniques. Reddit's /r/technology is basically a Microsoft echo chamber, and most other tech news and blogging sites are similarly infested. The problem is that all the online tech forums are vulnerable to being gamed by commercial interests, and formerly big sites like Slashdot have been extensively examined for ways to do that. In the mean time, the owners and devs of the site have been fiddling with Beta instead of fixing the degredation of purpose that's driven everyone but the trolls and marketers out of here.

      The question really comes down to:

      1. Will SMM posters be prosecuted or suffer any negative consequence if caught?
      2. Is the cost per impression competitive with other online marketing (spam etc)?
      3. Is the cost per click and cost per order competitive with other online marketing?

      The answer in Slashdot's case is clearly No, Yes and Yes, which means 4. is, as always, Profit!.

      There ARE tools/sites where you can learn about what's happening in the Libre/FOSS world. Trouble is, they're vulnerable to the same kind of takeover that's happened with Slashdot et al, so I certainly won't be announcing their presence here.

      If you're a genuine Open Source contributor or supporter, you'll most likely be invited anyway.

    10. Re:Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget one must patronize the Church of Snowden and pledge fealty to Father Assange. To question the motives of the Church will bring a fatwa upon you.

    11. Re:Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      I can't imagine why anybody who so completely misinterprets Slashdot, its postings and its audience would spend time here posting such a remarkably inaccurate account. Clearly you're better than us. Why are you wasting your life here?

    12. Re:Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure that Googling for screenshots when you're looking for multi-purpose libraries like Boost is really effective.

      https://www.google.com/search?q=thread+management+library+c%2B%2B&tbm=isch

      That is some quality drill-down right there.

    13. Re:Google? by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but Slashdot has its own ideologies:

      - Linux and Apple good, Microsoft bad
      - copyright assertion bad, piracy good (since digital stuff was meant to be free). Big exception: GPL violations must be vigorously prosecuted
      - patents are bad (this one I mostly agree with)
      - privacy violation by the government for security is totalitarian and alarming, similar techniques by Internet companies is a necessary evil (as a business model)
      - H1-Bs and offshoring of US/Western European jobs to developing companies bad
      - technologies or companies promising to make programming and/or system administration dramatically cheaper and easier = quackery
      etc

      Heh! I might as well add some:

      - IPv6 is the best thing since sliced bread
      - NAT is always terrible and one must run public IP addresses and a real firewall instead
      - The Ribbon widget is awful
      - Ubuntu Unity is crap
      - Daylight saving time is a bad idea
      - Internet Explorer is a buggy and non-standards-compliant web browser
      - Everything must be open source and run the Linux kernel

    14. Re:Google? by asmkm22 · · Score: 2

      Agreed. Since the vast majority of open source projects are designed to be free alternatives to paid products, my source of "news" usually comes in the form of "open source sharepoint" or "open source office" type searches. The main problem with this is that, like most things in the open-source world, tons of projects exist without any updates for years. So while googling can offer a wide range of results, I usually have to cross-reference them with Wikipedia since they seem to do a good job of showing current versions of software.

    15. Re:Google? by mitzampt · · Score: 1

      Some are common personal preferences that got accepted within submissions. Don't remember that much about NAT, though...

      --
      uhm...
    16. Re:Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since the vast majority of open source projects are designed to be free alternatives to paid products, my source of "news" usually comes in the form of "open source sharepoint" or "open source office" type searches.

      So very true. I just searched for "open source windows" and found ReactOS. Even the name of the project says reactionary clone of a proprietary OS.

    17. Re:Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...well that is if you can wait a week to months for them to get around to dishing up stale news as news... /. has been a pretty piss poor source of news for years now.

      That said, phoronix, reddit, etc. freshmeat wasn't even that good for quite some time unlike back in the day when the only alternatives were to trawl the various mailing lists(and archives) and newsgroups and/or maybe see something pop up in a blog or other specialized hobby sites.

    18. Re:Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure that Googling for screenshots when you're looking for multi-purpose libraries like Boost is really effective. https://www.google.com/search?... That is some quality drill-down right there.

      Here is the disclaimer I used at the bottom of that same post:

      And obviously, if I was a different kind of developer, or if I was a different kind of project manager with a different kind of community/user focus, my sources could be very different.

  2. various places by Rinikusu · · Score: 2

    Honestly, /. still gives me some leads on occasion. hacker news, reddit.com/r/, and then just googling for shit.

    --
    If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
    1. Re:various places by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      reddit.com/r/what?
      Did you perhaps mean reddit.com/r/linux?

    2. Re:various places by Rinikusu · · Score: 1

      Formatting ate my brackets. Chances are, if you're interested in a language, there's a /r for it. In that /r there's usually talk of projects built with that language, or articles comparing that to other frameworks. It's kinda like a wikipedia style hole you fall into. For example, on a whim I was looking at /r/smalltalk and found pharo. Once I was digging around pharo, found newspeak. Or in /r/lisp, found dr. racket while reading through. I haven't read through /r/linux though, mainly because I'm rather content with my Mint installation, although I have been eyeing trying a slack release again on another box.

      --
      If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
    3. Re:various places by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      The Bitcoin 0.3.0 release article on Slashdot in July 2010 changed my life. For example, by getting me into FPGA and GPU hacking.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  3. freecode was very useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If only as an aggregator / promotion interface for project. Something else will come and fill this space.

  4. The Place to B...SD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    For news about the BSD family of open source operating systems, there is a weekly video podcast, http://www.bsdnow.tv

    1. Re:The Place to B...SD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah, too bad they only care about operating systems to include other BSD licensed software. If it did include other software the audience might grow beyond the select sysadmins that want to install a bunch of different BSD distributions.

    2. Re:The Place to B...SD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know, it's not called "BSD Now" for nothing...

    3. Re:The Place to B...SD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The point is that it is "BSD [Operating Systems] Now", not "BSD [Software] Now". This tunnel vision limits the audience and the appeal of what might have been useful.

  5. Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    I used to goto slashdot but it's gotten dumbed down over last 10 years.

    1. Re:Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      you should update and use 'goto beta.slashdot'.

    2. Re:Slashdot by mitzampt · · Score: 1

      Phoronix

      --
      uhm...
    3. Re:Slashdot by Mr+Thinly+Sliced · · Score: 1

      "Phoronix Forums. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious."
      - Obi-Wan Kenobi

    4. Re:Slashdot by mitzampt · · Score: 1

      Quality forum? You've never heard of Proronix?

      Should I have?

      It's the site that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs!

      --
      uhm...
  6. Github by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Github has become the new freshmeat/sourceforge replacement.

    1. Re:Github by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      only as a place to host your project.

      For finding related projects, or finding projects that want help you still miss the features of sourceforge. in fact, if it wasn't for the dice-ificaton of SF, SF would be the premier site to host your OSS projects. I wish Dice would get this.

      Besides, I stopped trusting github after the revelation how the founders were playing with it and their employees. If they can't run themselves professionally, I don't trust them to run the entire business or sites professionally either, I've been on too many sites that closed up for whatever reason to want to lose my source to the increased risk that github screws things up more.

  7. Linux sites I visit by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 4, Informative

    linux.softpedia.com

    osnews.com

    Linux Today

    Linux Weekly News

    1. Re:Linux sites I visit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Warning: Visiting some of these terrorist-oriented sites may put you on some lists.

    2. Re:Linux sites I visit by Teancum · · Score: 1

      While this is good, not all open software is restricted to just Linux or Linux-based software.

    3. Re:Linux sites I visit by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 0

      True though that may be, any FOSS project that doesn't support Linux is useless for the vast majority. If you use Windows then you are, by definition, not interested in FOSS, regardless of the contemporry M$ spin. There are many good FOSS projects with Windows ports, but if you want to use Windows and you don't want them you are basically screwed since FOSS relies on a community of competent developers, and by definition, "Windows only" developers that are competent are virtually non-existent.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  8. irc://irc.geekshed.net/jupiterbroadcasting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For those of us still refusing to join modern networks, IRC is vibrant as ever.

    1. Re:irc://irc.geekshed.net/jupiterbroadcasting by westlake · · Score: 1

      For those of us still refusing to join modern networks, IRC is vibrant as ever.

      would it kill the geek to bring the IRC and USENET client into the 21st century?

    2. Re:irc://irc.geekshed.net/jupiterbroadcasting by FyRE666 · · Score: 2

      I used to be a regular user of Freenode, but it's a total cesspool of meglomaniacs who have somehow managed to crawl up someone's ass to get op status, and their toadies. Here's how the average conversation goes in most of the old channels I used to frequent:

      A: Can any one help me with XXX?
      Twat1: Why do you want to do that?
      A: {explains}
      Twat2: That's stupid
      Twat1: Yeah, who told you to do that
      A: Well, I'm just looking for help to do XXX
      Twat1: Nobody does that, so why are you asking?
      Twat2: Well said Twat1
      A has left channel
      Twat1: So I was talking to Twat3 about fish the other night...
      B: I'd like some help with YYY
      Twat2: That's off topic
      B: Oh ok
      B has left channel
      Twat2: So what about fish? ... etc...

      I wouldn't recommend anyone wanting any actual technical help/feedback go there.

      --
      Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
    3. Re:irc://irc.geekshed.net/jupiterbroadcasting by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      There are plenty of clients for both ... google is your friend.

      And I don't get what is wrong with a 20th century client anyway.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    4. Re:irc://irc.geekshed.net/jupiterbroadcasting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The lesson is not to talk to people. They know nothing and you know less. RTFM instead.

    5. Re:irc://irc.geekshed.net/jupiterbroadcasting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it wouldn't kill the geek.

      Now, just point to a 21st century technology worth adopting for this task. Because as far as I can see, we've got Facebook, Twitter, and similar dross that offer nothing but the chance to be advertised to, or the chance to have the signal completely buried in the noise. Nothing that would improve delivering information about new projects beyond IRC-with-archives, or RSS feeds.

    6. Re:irc://irc.geekshed.net/jupiterbroadcasting by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      IRC should be steamrolled and a better system brought to replace it.

      - It does not come with encryption
      - Netsplits are handled crudely
      - A lot of functionality (such as nickname registration or channel ownership) is not in the spec and is handled by hacky bots or modified servers
      - It unnecessarily exposes the network layer to the user
      - It can be confusing and overly technical to a newbie

    7. Re:irc://irc.geekshed.net/jupiterbroadcasting by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      There are already better systems, since decades.
      But people don't adopt them ... not IRCs fault.

      E.g. Jabber ... most online games I play, people use Jabber.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    8. Re: irc://irc.geekshed.net/jupiterbroadcasting by rwa2 · · Score: 1

      some guy was gushing about irccloud.

      I don't really have that muchtrouble keeping track of IRC on irssi on my 24x7 server though. That makes me a dinosaur I guess.

    9. Re:irc://irc.geekshed.net/jupiterbroadcasting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Err, IRC clients for the 21st century are pretty common (check the Play Store or the App Store for proof of that). Or are you trying to suggest the standard for IRC be overhauled to include something like, video or audio chat? While I haven't seen this tackled at the client level (because, well, IRC servers don't have this functionality natively), I have seen it rolled up into a page that loads a java irc client, as well as a video chat interface, and a shared youtube queue for group "DJ'ing".

      I'm not sure why IRC needs to change to stay relevant any more than Email. Sure, it's always nice to see moves to encrypted standards, and many servers now offer (and some require) SSL connections. But all in all, it's a text chat protocol, and it continues to do that well. Just because it's not proprietary and full of advertising doesn't make it obsolete.

  9. Timothy Strikes Again by Fnord666 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hey Timothy, have you ever noticed that submenu over on the left of the front page? You know, the one that lists the various sections that you can posts stories to? Ever notice that there is one called "Ask Slashdot", which just happens to match up exactly with the premise of this story, not to mention the title. Why don't you do all of us who filter by section a favor and try posting "Ask Slashdot" stories to the "Ask Slashdot" section every once in a while?
    Thanks

    --
    'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
  10. www.openhub.net by vladmihaisima · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is the former ohloh.net, can be very useful also to understand how active a project is and how did it evolve.

  11. not here by nurb432 · · Score: 2

    In the old days here, freshmeat and sourceforge, but not post-dice. Not really seeing much point in any of them now.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:not here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they really did trash it all

  12. Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    SoylentNews.org
      OSNews
      DaemonForums
      ArsTechnica
      Distrowatch

  13. Showing (lat/new)est additions & up(grad/dat)e by antdude · · Score: 2

    I miss freshmeat/freecode for showing the (lat/new)est additions & up(grad/dat)es on its home page without an account. :(

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  14. Re:Showing (lat/new)est additions & up(grad/da by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Like slashdot.org, Dice keeps coming up craps on those sites.

  15. Wikipedia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wikipedia is like one big technical manual and news rag.

    Just last month I was thinking I use too much Linux and I should try using BSD for something, but which BSD? So I pulled up Comparison of BSD operating systems and chose one.

  16. Yahoo Groups and /. by McLae · · Score: 1
    I subscribe to the Yahoo Group for the software I use (JMRI).

    For the weird and wonderful stuff, right here baby!

  17. I need a replacement for a different reason by physicsphairy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Perhaps it's now hidden somewhere, but I no longer see the search function, which I wouldn't mind having even for a static archive. My typical first operation in looking for a peace of software was to go to freshmeat, do a search, and sort by popularity/vitality.

    Variety in open source is wonderful, but unless I have very specific requirements, I often just want to install one of the 'community approved best' options and not worry about deciphering reviews and forum posts to find out what is featured, active, and stable. In my experience, freshmeat was always the best place for that.

    sf.net and the ubuntu software center do have some decent rankings. I recently used the later to preload Ubuntu for a friend with software I thought would showcase what opensource can do for him.

    What would be awfully nice, however, would be some sort of cross-platform aggregation of statistics which includes downloads from package managers.

    --
    When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
  18. /r/coolgithubprojects by wangstabill · · Score: 2

    There's a subreddit for cool github projects. http://www.reddit.com/r/coolgi...

    1. Re:/r/coolgithubprojects by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Hey, nice one! Great answer.

  19. freshcode.club, a successor in spirit (and more) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://freshcode.club

    From their about page:
    "freshcode.club is a reimplementation of FreshMeat/FreeCode, which shut down in June 2014. It's intended to become a community-driven website again.
    It's initially also a lookalike. Yet it's planned to differentiate the feature set and provide different frontends with shared datasets. A few notable design differences are:
            No forced user accounts, just OpenID logins.
            All content is licensed under CC-BY-SA to prevent another data loss situation.
            JSON-based database exchange feeds and defining releases.json.
            Automated release updates from VCS systems and project websites.
            No commercial ads, no tracking cookies.
    The project name freshcode.club is an amalgamation of freshmeat and freecode. Both domains have been reserved as placeholders for partner projects or varied frontends. With the new .club TLD signalising a more community-inclusive direction."

  20. Re: Showing (lat/new)est additions & up(grad/d by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Freshcode.club

  21. Re:Mostly word of mouth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Not surprising since computers and the Internet were invented by gay men.

  22. My local LUG (Linux Users Group) by mrflash818 · · Score: 1

    /. debian.org/news, and my local Linux Users Group (LUG)

    --
    Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
  23. The great decline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder how the Slashdot crowd gets news about new projects, and even new versions of existing projects.

    Oh, various sources.
    But, just to clarify, not one of those is Slashdot.
    Slashvertisements? Sure. Articles posted by Timothy? Unfortunately. But, most certainly, what I've come to expect is that one thing I certainly will not be getting is: news.

    It's a bit entertaining, actually, seeing just how much an actually dedicated community gets so thoroughly mistreated. I think I may keep checking out this site. But it's certainly not because I'm looking for interesting news.

  24. Freshports... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    On http://www.freshports.org/

  25. various by taikedz · · Score: 3, Informative

    From a user's perspective, three sources: the Linux Action Show podcast highlghts fun/useful items once a week.

    Then there's tuxmachines.org which talks about.... well pretty much anything, you'll have to sift through the deluge...

    Then just following what's generally popular, and using alternativeto.net to find open source counterparts...

    --
    -- "Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability." --Dijkstra
  26. I mainly use FreeBSD by rainer_d · · Score: 1

    so I can use http://www.freshports.org/
    I have subscriptions for the stuff that I use, build, or that I'm generally interested in (I run my on own build-server and build about 1200 packages these days) and I get an email every evening (local time) that lists all the updates to these projects.
    It will sometimes take a longer time for a port to be updated (for various reasons) - but it works well enough.
    In these cases, other news-portals often carry the news of a new release (like it's the case for PHP).
    In contrast to freshmeat, freshport's mail-summaries contain much more and better information.

    --
    Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
  27. Hacker News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    HN has more stuff about sw than /. so I get announcements about FOSS there. But Google is a better discovery tool than randomly stumbling over sw I don't care about in a given moment.

    By the way, HN gets news about anything interesting subject a couple of days before /. too so I'm happy the beta affair made me discover it. I come back every second day to check what's going on here, sometimes there are news that didn't make it to HN.

  28. Pipedot.org by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Http://pipedot.org/story/2014-07-26/friday-distro-kaos-linux

    They have a distro-of-the-week article on Fridays.

  29. This is where I get all my open source tech news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://libregraphicsworld.org/
    He is doing a very good job with anything I like.

  30. Re:Showing (lat/new)est additions & up(grad/da by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I promise to [insert personal god] that if I wind the lottery, I'll spend a TON of my money on open source projects, including freecode.com. It pains me to see projects stagnate or struggle when we've all been benefiting from the hard work.

    Right after I pay off my debt and buy a couple of bad bitches. Foreal tho. No bullsh!t.

  31. Github "explore" by belphegore · · Score: 1

    https://github.com/explore

  32. Google? How do you search for what you don't know? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Idiots saying to use a search engine, answer that question. Duh.

  33. VersionEye by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Take a look at VersionEye (http://versioneye.com). It is awesome.

  34. Good source of news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.linuxtoday.com

  35. openhub.net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ohloh, which has just been rebranded as Open Hub. Since it tracks the source repository it can reasonably tell if the project is still active. It also deduces the language(s) being used which can help if you are looking at a framework.

    Both Ohloh and freshcode.club need more database entries, though. There are a few older projects that are still useful floating around that they ignore: xautolock is missing on both and network audio system (NAS) is missing on both.

    SourceForge itself can be a good place to look, though it obviously only finds projects hosted on SourceForge. That means you will not have self-hosted or alternatively hosted projects (GitHub, Google Code, etc).