Slashdot Mirror
SourceForge Suspends Independent Project Mirroring
vivaoporto writes: In a reversal motivated by community concerns (like the high profile outcry over the distribution of an ads-enabled installer for GIMP and the accusation by Fyodor of the hijacking of the nmap SourceForge project), SourceForge has discontinued third-party bundling of mirrored content.
Along with that, as of June 18th, SourceForge started "removing SourceForge-maintained mirrored projects" and engaging their "newly-formed Community Panel to discuss site features and program policies including a redesigned mirror program." Of the 295 mirrored projects, they removed all that were "not co-maintained with one or more of the original developers, except where the upstream site has been discontinued." For those wanting to reach SourceForge for some constructive feedback, they point to the recently-established Community Voice forum. Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate overlord.
Along with that, as of June 18th, SourceForge started "removing SourceForge-maintained mirrored projects" and engaging their "newly-formed Community Panel to discuss site features and program policies including a redesigned mirror program." Of the 295 mirrored projects, they removed all that were "not co-maintained with one or more of the original developers, except where the upstream site has been discontinued." For those wanting to reach SourceForge for some constructive feedback, they point to the recently-established Community Voice forum. Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate overlord.
It took them long enough to reverse something that should never have happened in the first place. Sorry Sourceforge, we had a good run, but this finally pushed me to move else where for project hosting.
no one cares about you, and your download pages full of ads and big bright green fake download buttons. The only thing you can do that would be of any value, is something akin to the old Walnut Creek FTP site.
Otherwise, fuck off
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
>> SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate overlord.
How about a Kickstarter campaign to fix our current "corporate overlord" problem?
Hmm, time to build a new one. Shall we start a github project?
- Dan
Not sure if you're livving up to your username or what, but that's not true.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/06/01/1241231/sourceforge-and-gimp-updated/
Dice, SF, and slashdot genuinely fuck up frequently enough that we can do quite well without the histrionics and bogus accusations.
Uh, do you mean aside from the two other Slashdot articles linked in the summary?
At this point, downloaders can't have confidence that any software coming from Sourceforge hasn't been tampered with and might include unwanted guests. Till they establish ethics in how they host software which conform to what most users expect from a software download site, they are a no go for me
SourceForge should never have been considered a potential revenue stream... it should have been preserved as a community service project that enhances your standing in relation to those parts of Dice that do generate revenue.
Corporate execs are far too quick to forget that.
Lots of tech companies subsidize community service projects - this is great, but abusing these efforts, and trying to make a quick buck off them is a quick way to damage your reputation in the tech world. Building trust and admiration through such projects takes time and effort, and can be very rewarding to a company's bottom line, but when you betray the trust, it can quickly become a poison that no amount of time can heal.
Dice, you've gained a lot of people who will never forget this. Certainly, many of them were not exactly fans to begin with, but they will be vociferous and their influence WILL impact your bottom line. Trying to make that quick buck will cost you far more in the long run. I certainly hope whoever was behind this "idea" has been sent packing. The road to rebuilding your reputation will be a long and painful one.
" With that in mind, SourceForge pledges to present third-party offers only with the projects that explicitly opted-in to that program."
These days, whenever I see a company or organization use the phrase "opt-in", I immediately tune out anything else that is said, and decide I want nothing more to do with that company or organization.
Proverbs 21:19
I know! We can build something and host the source on Sourceforge!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
just move to https://www.soylentnews.org/ clon...
done... no kickstarted neeeded
Good luck, it is going to take a long time and a lot of effort to win back the trust the SF once had.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I have often wondered about this myself. Is Slashdot worth more to its users that it is to its corporate masters? Is there some sum of money that unsatisfied Slashdot users could scrape together, perhaps over weeks and months, contributing some petty sum to some online swear jar whenever they encounter a petty annoyance, that would eventually accumulate into something that Dice would have to take seriously?
The thing is, from a revenue perspective, I'm not sure Slashdot is worth anything at all. There's no "there" there--its value is almost entirely in its network of engaged commenters. I'm pretty sure 9x% of the people who visit Slashdot use ad blockers, and even if you somehow found a way to sneak ads past the blockers, that would just cause those people to exodus anyway. So I guess ideally Slashdot would have to be run as sort of a public service, rather than as a money-maker. I figured Dice bought Slashdot and SourceForge to drive traffic to their job site, sort of as a loss-leader, goodwill gesture, look-at-us-we-totally-get-you-guys, please-consider-us-for-your-next-job-search sort of thing. But given how they're seemingly burning the goodwill candle at both ends by pushing through unpopular measure after unpopular measure, I have to admit I can't figure out what their real strategy is.
Then again, how much could Slashdot cost to run? It's just a forum, for chissakes, right?
Then again again, if it's just a forum, why hasn't everybody moved on, en masse, to one of the clones of Slashdot that disgruntled Slashdotters have started in recent years? Because it's all about the network, I guess, and two halves of a big network aren't even half as good as the original network.
Beats me. I hope somebody figures something out before too long, though.
"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently."
- Warren Buffett
Just move projects to GitHub, and let Source Forge rot.
/. doesn't demand nearly the traffic it used to. Likewise, it doesn't send as much traffic as it used to. So, it's no surprise kids these days don't even know what 'slashdotting' is!