Slashdot Mirror
SourceForge Eliminates DevShare Program (sourceforge.net)
SourceForge has officially eliminated its DevShare program. The DevShare program delivered installer bundles as part of the download for participating projects. We want to restore our reputation as a trusted home for open source software, and this was a clear first step towards that. We are more interested in doing the right thing than making extra short-term profit. This is just the first step in a number of improvements we will outline in the coming weeks. SourceForge and Slashdot were acquired in late January by BIZX.
The majority of the good open source apps have moved to GitHub over this, and user trust in the site is dead. I know myself and a number of people I know don't go there anymore, hell, uBlock even blocks it by default.
I think we're done here.
Do you understand we just bought the site last week? We didn't see a dime from the DevShare program since we weren't the owners. The first thing we did when we purchased the site is remove the program.
"Making a extra short term profit" FAIL
We just purchased the site a week ago. I think your anger is misdirected.
Never understood why it was killed. It was a great way to find out about new and interesting projects/ideas.
SourceForge has a long way to go to regain mind share, but this is a good start. I think the type of folks that are posting to Slashdot are the type of folks who might be willing to help support it again. Let's see what comes next.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Good job Sourceforge, keep up the good work.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Do you realize we just purchased the site a little over a week ago? We had no control over the previous owners' decisions.
Nobody else has said so, so let me say: Thanks for trying to fix things, New Management. I appreciate efforts like these. Keep it up.
The others are probably right about it being too late to make much difference, of course. Broken trust is a mother. And none of us are really sure how reputable the new bosses are, of course. But I feel it's important to recognize and encourage any steps in the right direction. So thanks again.
It is a long and proud tradition here to not read the article. The summary given does not mention the sale, so it is a pretty easy mistake to make.
You're right. I thought the Related Links sufficed. I'll update it.
First, good on you to start fixing things in the first week. I know that I miss the days of being able to download things off of sourceforge.
Secondly, do you have an overarching philosophy you can share about how you plan on running your new acquisitions. I know a mission statement is often a lame thing, but I think something that clearly explained your vision, and that people could judge your future actions by, would be nice..
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Our overarching philosophy for SourceForge is that it needs to be a trusted destination free of any sort of malicious adware or deceptive advertising. We are committed to achieving this. Eliminating DevShare was the first step. Establishing SourceForge as a trusted open source destination is our main goal.
It's going to be a Via Dolorosa for you guys. SourceForge got properly Volkswagen'd by Dice and it's even blocked by uBlock by default. If, however, you are truly going to try to purge SF from all its evil, please consider streamlining the UI while at it. It's a mess at its current state.
-SR
How about some good faith efforts... Like executing apk, timothy, and startswithabang
this is apropos of nothing, but i read that as "how you plan on ruining your new acquisitions" and literally laughed out loud.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Will do. Thanks for the feedback
No bullshit. I'll really send you money. I remember loving sourceforge. If you have a gofundme, or paypal account, or something like that, I'll send you $5 to help offset the lost revenue from that program you scrapped. There are people out there who will help support those who do the right thing, even if they're companies or for-profit corporations, or whatever.
Give me my "Turn this ad off because you've got good Karma" option back, and there's another $10 in it for you.
It's been 2 1/2 years since I've posted. I see the potential in this for something I loved to come back. So I'll post now.
Who else will support these guys?
APK's days are numbered. Also we're talking SourceForge here
Hey there
Yes.
Every time you use SJW you show how immature you really are. Also most people assume you're a sexually frustrated meninist.
Thanks for the support. Keep your $15 for now. We're doing this because we want these sites to live up to their former potential, and if we do this correctly, then legitimate advertising dollars will support the business instead of bundled warez and deceptive ads. Hope you keep posting. We will definitely look at the karma/ad thing though.
Yeah there's probably people that don't know this existed. But we're doing this in the spirit of transparency.
Thanks. Doing our best.
You can wait all you want. We just posted here so that we could get the word out more quickly. I am sure other outlets will report on it eventually.
Was wondering the same thing. Maybe I fell for the bait
Too early.
Right now it is all talk and a start, if the actions live up to the talk long term then I would consider it.
APK's days are numbered.
I think we were just hoping you'd mute him, but that works too.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Also the "wrongdoing" was committed by the previous owners, not us
Reputation and Trust take years to build up, and it can all be destroyed in minutes by the wrong decisions. Back in the day, SF used to be the go-to place, but not anymore. I avoid it like the plague, like many, many others.
Good luck trying to build it again, but remember what I posted about reputation and trust...
-- Fuck Beta
Cool. Well we just eliminated bundled installers so look at it however you please
Me? My name is Logan Abbott and I am the president of SourceForge. Check my twitter at @loganabbott and the slashdot icon next to my name
Well, if you want us to believe you, answering questions put to you would be a good start.
Why didn't you respond to the below questions? You read and replied to notes posted after them? See how easy it is to screw up your credibility?
Agree to all the requirements below or tell us why you won't and we'll know if you new overlords are serious.
= = =
1) you will never never NEEEVER bundle ANYTHING or in ANY WAY try to alter the files placed there by uploaders/project owners.
2) also NEVER you will post ADs that could be mistaken for The Download, and in addition all ads will be very clearly marked e.g. with red border and red text saying "3rd party advertisement". And any banner/AD will lead first to outgoing banner saying clearly "You are now leaving sourceforge.net! and going to xyz.com - we take no responsibility for that site or any downloads on it"
3) of course you can never delete or take over a project then e.g. to kick out legitimate owner and push own "enriched" versions
Stuff like this will be addressed in our upcoming TOS.
1) we won't bundle anything. however you should be aware some project owners bundle their own incarnations that are not beneficial to users 2) we are removing any deceptive advertising 3) right
Hope so!
Sometimes it's hard for people to trust /. users with 7 digit UIDs ...
Okay Whiplash,
I remember reading the first "We now own Slashdot" article (and trust me, had I been able to get that dang winning Powerball ticket, I would have been in the bidding war :) ) and it is nice to see the staff following up on things extremely quickly considering how much cruft and contract that has to be dug through to make it happen. Looking forward to seeing good stuff. (Is this a note of optimism?) If you guys are in the Bay Area, I'll buy a round.
Will you be writing that legally binding (for you too!) ToS, where any attempts to again sneak in bundled crap results instant at least 10,000$ damages payment per project - and of course then you are sued for more by the project owners and/or by class action lawsuit?
With the SF.net reputation of "that site where you download maleware/adware, avoid it!", it's really the least you can do to give any real gesture that you want to change the things for future and actually are responsible for that now.
Github is having it's own problems with credibility. It seems the Social Justice Warriors have infested the site with their lunacy.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I've been lurking here since 98. If they can maintain half the engagement and clean up SF as mentioned, I'll keep visiting.
Thanks for the kind words. In this for the long haul
The goal is to hire non-white sales people. Github's boss has declared that she can't even interview white people. Worse, she has declared that white WOMEN are the enemy. Racists are racists, no matter which race they are denigrating.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
35 million monthly unique users say otherwise.
Hey, can you like give them a minute or two? They just bought the fucking site a week or two ago. They've done more good in that time than Dice did in the last several years. It's going to take some time for them to remove all the Dice fuckups.
Thanks. Trying to be transparent here
The problem is that, even though you weren't the ones who caused them, you've inherited the site's problems.
Think about it. Why are you trying to rehabilitate SourceForge? Why did you buy it in the first place? If you wanted a software repository hosing site, why didn't you create a new one from scratch? ... I'm guessing the reason is that there's value in the SourceForge brand. Tarnished as it may be there's name recognition that "SourceForge" has that "BizxBin" doesn't. There is value in the relationships that SourceForge has built over the years - there is value of the concept of "SourceForge" as an entity.
When it comes to brand recognition, you don't get to pick and choose. You bought SourceForge for it's positive attributes, but you also bought the responsibility for cocking it up. You can't implicitly claim responsibility/affinity for early-2000s era SourceForge, but completely disclaim responsibility for early 2010s SourceForge. The continuity of brand cuts both ways.
Sure, it sounds like you're committed to turning things around, but you have to remember that there's bad blood here. SourceForge was scummy and underhanded. You (as "SourceForge") have to prove yourself now. It's human nature not to trust things that betrayed you - and shaving off the goatee and wearing a new hat isn't sufficient to reopen the lines of trust. Sure, the owners and management team may have changed, but in people's minds "SourceForge" is still "SourceForge".
You (whipslash & BIZX) might not be an asshole, but "SourceForge" is/was. And as you attempt to rebuild things, it's important to remember that. Accepting responsibility gracefully and demonstrating an earnest effort to making things better will go a long way toward rebuilding your relationship with the community. Try to cash in on the positive brand recognition while disclaiming any culpability for the negative, and you'll come off as snobbish and whiny, which will hurt your standing.
Excellent news. Thank you.
-Dave
We're gonna do the work. Feedback welcome
https://sourceforge.net/blog/today-we-offer-devshare-beta-a-sustainable-way-to-fund-open-source-software/
Was that really 2 and a half years ago?
Hopefully this will be a blip in history of an iconic site.
Off topic I know but I wanted to say I appreciate the changes that have happened to slashdot as well. I look at the front page and there is only 1 story I would remove (The Anthropology sexual abuse one) and the rest are ones that I was actually interested to read about. I compare that to a fortnight ago and the difference is massive.
So thank you Whiplash.
And if you are interested these are the reasons why I would remove the Anthropology story
* Click bait headline - There is no way a single incident would "Rock" an entire global sector or industry.
* It isn't related to science, technology or anything that I would call Nerd worthy. You could change the word Anthropology for anything and the story doesn't change. It is a people story.
* Read the comments. There isn't anything to really discuss. Either you think the guy was a fuckwit or you think someone over reacted. There is no grey zones to discuss. No expert that could come in and give me a nugget of information that I didn't know.
* Sciencehabit is a posting bot. He / She / It isn't part of this community. I suspect there is a multi-poster somewhere with their credentials loaded into it and the only thing they are doing is trying to drive traffic to sciencemag.org having posted the same stuff to every site they could.
So y'all are going to kill him?
That's cool I guess.... but now I'll think twice before shit-posting on /.
You have no idea how glad this makes me. I've had that site blacklisted for years. The first time it had shitware bundled in I was done. Thank you for just straight up buying the whole goddamned thing and fixing it.
You do understand this is a new crew right? Like if you had bought sourceforge a year ago, and then immediately fixed the shitware problem, you'd expect people to be happy with that, right? Well that is what happened.
You do realize Sourceforge, like Slashdot, is under new ownership now, right? What they've done here is show that they are willing and able to listen to the community, unlike previous owners of the property. Just sayin'.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Thanks!
Thank you!
I'll take this as a good sign that the new overlords are not quite as evil as the last. Might be too late, but time will tell. Hope that the bad faith of the old overlords helped drive the price down.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I didn't read past the title, so you should probably mention it there, too.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
You're very welcome
Thanks for doing this.
As long as your fixing things.. do you think you could fix the download links to not be hostile to "wget"? Being able to paste the download link into an ssh session on a remote machine tends to be a huge time saver.
So then it did restore their reputation one iota.
You do the same every time you use the word "meninist", leading to a different, but equally unflattering assumption.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Well, I'm not sure if there's an entity that could, after acquiring Sourceforge, ruin it more than it was.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Really? Ok, put it in site ToS for both publishers and the users/downloaders, that 1) you will never never NEEEVER bundle ANYTHING or in ANY WAY try to alter the files placed there by uploaders/project owners. 2) also NEVER you will post ADs that could be mistaken for The Download, and in addition all ads will be very clearly marked e.g. with red border and red text saying "3rd party advertisement". And any banner/AD will lead first to outgoing banner saying clearly "You are now leaving sourceforge.net! and going to xyz.com - we take no responsibility for that site or any downloads on it" 3) of course you can never delete or take over a project then e.g. to kick out legitimate owner and push own "enriched" versions Put that it in ToS and guarantee e.g. up to 10,000$ per project damages. Then we could talk. Btw. anyway what imo could be more interesting now, would be an guthub.com clone, just like github but without the SJW nuttery that results in censorship that is going in there. How ever I doubt you could do it, as Slashdot seems quite leftist too, with frequest bullshit stories about "closing the technical gap" and other anti-white-male whiny propagana bullshit. But sure - feel free to impress us on these fields, we will see.
Honestly, I don't understand your viewpoint. They've made progress towards improving both sites they bought - this is a huge step forward for Sourceforge, and Slashdot's quality of news has drastically increased. We're actually getting News for Nerds, and I for one have greatly enjoyed reading stories that are actually pretty interesting for once. They've answered many questions patiently, they've taken the abuse expected from a cynical community, and Whiplash and Co. haven't done anything yet that would make my eyebrows raise. Why would you write such a puerile response for a site whose old owners have left, and a new owner is actually trying to breathe some life back into it? This is a good thing, and I'd love some competition to Github. If BizX turns into what Dice was, then we'll talk, but so far they've shown that they actually do care about the site and are interested in our community. Hell, if you look through, you can see that Whiplash has actually read a lot of posts here, or at least responded to some that aren't close to the top.
Frankly, Mr. Freeman, you are coming off as a troll and that doesn't help anyone. A clause against backdoor additions or advertisement bundling would be nice, but that whole damages spiel is unnecessary, and you're in no position to make demands of someone who will host your programs, maintain a site, foot the monthly internet bill, and provide tools to help you with your open source project for free.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Because the guy who paid for it and has the most possible vested interest in fixing it is telling you it won't. If it does, it's no longer just SourceForge's name, but also his own, that goes straight into the shitter.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Do you understand we just bought the site last week?
I hate to break it to you but he probably didn't RTFA, either.
Do you have ESP?
SourceForge has a hard row to hoe in this day of GitHub and BitBucket. That said, it also has deep roots in internet culture. You've taken a big first step, but I'd like to see you all do more.
@whiplash - Turn it into a valid competitor to those two others - it can be a money maker for you, if you can leverage it's history.
I would suggest branching out from that, and go from just source code repo to docker and vagrant repo. Make it a one-stop-shop for getting new projects off the ground. Partner with something like Digital Ocean (if possible) to make it their go to reference.
You've bought a dilapidated property in a hot part of town, revitalize it, and I think you can see it being a cash cow.
You know that's right, n00b.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Thank you. I'm sure you're aware that GitHub has gone full SJW and has started alienating developers. Source Forge may now have an opportunity to regain some market share.
HOWEVER.. Jesus Christ, the SF UI is a train wreck. It sucked in the 90s and sucks today. People put up with it then because there were no other options.
Look, it's about source, right? That is the first word in SourceForge. Open a GitHub project page and *bang* the source is right there. SourceForge? You have to click half a dozen times to find the source. And it's probably that shitty CVS source code viewer. Most people use SourceForge because they like CVS. At least drop that abomination ViewCSV and re-write it so it looks pretty.
Thank you and fuck beta.
Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
I just noticed this thread. It's gonna have to interrupt cocoa and movie time for a minute.
I just wanted to reiterate the above sentiments and add that it's timely - I'm getting back into coding, it has been a long time, and I always just put it my code out there. I can say that I'm kind of pissed about the whole thing to begin with. I'll also add that such is not your fault - and I'd not blame you for it. So, I can see fit to put my stuff on SourceForge. Somewhere, I've an older account there too. I don't even recall the username. ;-)
At any rate, there's no need for you to reply (but you can). I'm just happy to see you being people of your word. You said it was being attended to, it has been attended to. Trust me, we're looking for faults. I've yet to find any faults of significance and am happy to have you as our new overlords. If you're nice, we'll even let you pretend to be the boss once in a while.
Well, I'll let you. I can't speak for the OP AC or anything. They seem *really* disinclined to accept that you, and your company, are not responsible and that Slashdot has new overlords now.
I for one, welcome our malware-killing, personally-interacting, word-keeping, overlords. However, I'm still waiting on that picture and I just bumped into that 50 post/day limit just yesterday. I am not a big movie fan so I'll cheat and keep reading the thread on a laptop.
On that note, the missus says I have to go now. You neither fuck nor feed me, so I guess you can't be the boss at the moment. ;-)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Slashdot has turned into an incredibly angry, toxic environment over the past 5 years (which is pretty visible in this thread and, IMO, part of the reason why the site was/is suffering), so I dug up my old account and logged in just to give you some positive feedback. It looks like your heads and hearts are in the right place and it would be great to see Slashdot restored to its former glory. SourceForge could definitely become a major competitor to GitHub (for one, I think GH is too expensive) so that's one avenue to go down.
I'm already returning to Slashdot more regularly and it's only been a week since you took the reins - so keep it up.
This is Slashdot, home of the perpetually dissatisfied user. If Microsoft, Mozilla, Sony, or whoever simultaneously ended world hunger, cured cancer, and gave you shiny red balloon, they'd bitch about the color.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Easy there granther!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I didn't finish reading the title...
Required reading for internet skeptics
The karma/ad feature was a killer feature, please bring it back!
So, are you going to fix the annoying CDN/download system, ie the one that doesn't give simple URLs, but instead force every download through a CGI script, instead of using a proper fucking CDN, DNS round robin, or load balancer?
Do you have any idea how annoying it is to want to download a tarball from Sourceforge to a remote system I'm SSH'd to, but I can't copy the URL to the clipboard and paste it into the command line without escaping the ampersands, or having to manually rename the file?
Plus, let's be honest here: you're not fixing this crap because you all care about the open source community. You're fixing it because projects left in droves and your advertising revenue dropped. Stop pretending this is about anything other than money.
Please help metamoderate.
I was looking around the thread for a spot to reply and this seemed like it was as good a place as any.
... Clonezilla, NAS4Free, Filezilla (DevShare pariah), PDFCreator (Bundleware leper), 7-Zip, perhaps a handful of others. There isn't nearly the compelling selection that used to be available.
I'd like to offer my two cents, with some compound interest besides. Let's start with the major problems that SourceForge has:
* Reputation as a software source blasted to hell from years of misleading download buttons, the DevShare program, and badgersputumously stupid double-speak from its leadership.
* Reputation as a software hosting site blasted to double-hell due to things like the Gimp debacle and an inability on the part of developers to delete projects.
* Lack of software that anyone would want, due to quality projects fleeing from the aforementioned reputation suicide.
This isn't getting into any of the technical things that developers would like to see (Unicode, IPv6, various flavors of VCS, etc) but those will be covered below as well.
My recommendations on each point are as follows. First, reputation as a source:
* As soon as you can, create a legally binding terms of service (binding Sourceforge) that expressly forbids Mal/Ad/Badware. No unwanted shit, ever, even if it is so trivial as a shortcut to Yahoo on the desktop.
* Create a feedback mechanism where offending projects (like PDFCreator) can be reported and quickly suspended. Be strict about this - the loss of revenue from one project is no where near as hard to recover from as the loss of reputation. Reputation is extremely difficult to buy.
* Listen to advanced users on such things as creating download links that aren't hostile to wget. For that item specifically, since Devshare is down there is no longer a financial reason for obfuscating download links. But in general, attempt to build the site where people in the know can get what they need, easily.
* (Maybe) Sponsor forks of projects that were participants in DevShare. The assholes behind those projects profited from SourceForge's reputation suicide - they are in need of a housecleaning as much as SourceForge itself was.
Second, reputation as a development platform:
* Guarantee (again, in a legally binding way for SourceForge) that developers can close up shop at any time on Sourceforge and delete all traces of their project, without SourceForge intervention. The GIMP debacle is a perfect example. What's done is done - if someone wants to leave, you are doing your reputation no favors in keeping a zombie clone around.
* IPv6, Unicode, additional VCSes if they make sense (SourceForge already offers CVS, SVN, Git and Mercurial, correct?) - listen to developer feedback and if something makes good sense to add, do it.
* Listen to the various missteps that Github continues to make, and offer an alternative. Don't censor projects (unless it's something like Sarin-Nerve-Gas Maker 2.0 and the FBI tells you that you must), etc.
Lastly, there are scant few ways to address the severe lack of popular, high quality software projects. SourceForge lost a LOT of good software - VLC, Gimp, Notepad++, take a look at the Wikipedia records of "Project of the Month" and most of those are no longer at SourceForge ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ). SourceForge has left
Being a mirror for open source software is probably a good thing, once the guarantee to only distribute clean stuff is in place ( in stark contrast to someone like Download.com ). But you're going to have to prepare the site to receive projects back, and hope that some eventually recognize the merit of your efforts.
Thanks for the kind words. In this for the long haul
Considering the amount of money BIZX paid for Slashdot and Sourceforge, I would certainly hope so.
Just keep in mind while working your way through the comments here that 33.33% of the commenters are cynical assholes, the next 33.33% is just noise, and the final 33.33% are completely normal/rational people.
Thank you for saving these beloved websites. I hope all goes well and you make a return on your investment.
Huge applause for you on that. An excellent move.
Even when that 7-digit user is the new *OWNER* of /. ???
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
Reading over these comments, it's plain to see that whipslash is getting a demonstration of what you might call the "momentum of good will". If something has a bad reputation, one good move can't fix it overnight.
The flip-side of this is that I've heard stories from sales guys who say they get calls from clients they haven't spoken with in 10 years. They want to deal with the same guy because they remember the last good deal.
So. Hang in there whipslash. This is as bad as it gets, assuming you keep making the right moves.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Thanks for what you're doing.
CrazyOldMan
I'm an aberration, a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde amalgam of Cynical Asshole and Reasonable Normal Person. Also, this resonates with me: http://www.quickmeme.com/img/f...
Slashdot has turned into an incredibly angry, toxic environment over the past 5 years
It seems to me that almost everywhere on the internet is like this now, I used to post and comment on various different sites, these days I very seldom bother because people are more concerned with point scoring and arguing than actual discussion. This time I wanted to comment as another fairly old UID who is intrigued to see BZIX does with /. I'm glad to see you're working on fixing sourceforge's tarnished reputation good luck with your future endeavours ^_^
Simplicity lies within chaos
Seems to be an invitation to make my pitch again? This is another variation on the ideas presented in several other threads, but...
One of the functional problems of slashdot is how quickly topics go stale. Maybe that is the feature I should put my $15 on? Actually, I am thinking more along the lines of $100/year split into 10 projects for features or continuing costs. (As usual, details available upon polite request. The magic keywords for this one is "dynamic multidimensional topic search in the background".)
However, first a word from our sponsor!
Just joking, no sponsor, but there is a need for some background here. Maybe my premises are mis-focused?
As a wannabe user, I have frequently visited sourceforge over the years. Usually I am looking for specific software to solve some problem, and I often find it. Dead, orphaned, obsolete, fractional, or incomplete. THAT is the problem I want to solve, but I think we have to consider why the projects died, and I wish the new powers-that-be would refer us to some statistics about project death?
I think almost all of the programmers who were driving the sourceforge projects are well intentioned, but somehow fail to live up to their altruism. However, I take the idea pretty broadly. I even think that hoping to strike it rich by creating good software can be a form of altruism... The vow of poverty approach definitely does not work.
Therefore I think that the sincere interest of wannabe users should be assessed BEFORE sourceforge projects get the green light. My suggested form of sincerity would be pledging a $10 charity share towards the budgeted cost of the project. The natural implementation would be for the new owners to set up a 'charity share brokerage' and the wannabe donors would put their donations in a 'charity share account' that can be allocated towards the projects they like. The basic idea would be to prevent orphaned and incomplete projects, or to pick up old projects or ongoing costs on a transparent basis.
I even think the brokerage should earn a commission on the funded projects by providing several important services. (1) Make sure the proposals are complete. (2) Realistic schedule. (3) Acceptable budget (possible effected by competition from competing proposals for similar projects). (4) Testing and other easy-to-forget items are included. (5) SUCCESS CRITERIA. After the project has finished creating the software or otherwise been completed, then they would evaluate the results and the donors know how it came out. (Au, daupr. Keywords "charity shares”.)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I think you've done a great job so far, and love how you've been quick to react to feedback from the community. Looking forward to seeing how Slashdot and Sourceforge will continue to evolve under the new ownership.
Please do make a donation option. I use an Ad Blocker because I find the ad business toxic. I will not turn it off. Not even for Slashdot. But I do want /. to earn a living.
Phew!
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
To gain your confidence.
That's why it's called 'conning' someone.
Meet the new boss.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Thanks, your efforts are appreciated. It would be nice if you could fix /. subscriptions though, I'd like to renew mine. I realize it's probably chump change in the scheme of things, but the benefits were worth it to me and I like to support the community I'm part of.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I really hope you are joking... I'm going to assume you are, because AC tolls are a vital part of Slashdot.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This is Slashdot, home of the perpetually dissatisfied user. If Microsoft, Mozilla, Sony, or whoever simultaneously ended world hunger, cured cancer, and gave you shiny red balloon, they'd bitch about the color.
It better say on it: Mozilla bought food for the world and all I got was this lousy balloon.
I appreciate the effort, but it seems like the developer world has all migrated to GitHub now. This might is too little, too late.
Don't get too frustrated. There are some people who just aren't going to be happy no matter what you do. And it takes time to rebuild trust. Removing DevShare was a solid start to rebuilding that trust.
After you start building the reputation for the site back up again I'd suggest you contact some of the adblock extention authors so that they can delist SorceForge as a malicious site. (uBlock Origin as a example)
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
Of the stories on the front page the only ones I wouldn't consider "news for nerds" would be the sexual misconduct case and the Jeep gearshift story.
Believe it or not there are other types of engineers here besides folks who program for a living. The jeep gearshift story is about an engineering/design screwup and personally I find it quite interesting. Judging by the number of comments so did others. That sort of story definitely fits slashdot and would have before Dice took over. Furthermore the motto of Slashdot is "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." Nerds come in many forms and I certainly am one but not of the IT variety. Stuff that Matters extends beyond IT.
I agree however that the stories seem to be more focused lately so that is a good thing in my opinion. Of course the number of comments is still WAY down from 10 years ago. Used to be that slashdot attracted a fairly elite technical crowd. That hasn't been the case for a few years now for the most part. I still find it interesting but not like I once did.
Kids these days...
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
Get off my lawn!
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
Never underestimate the potential for the developer community to change their minds (or the hosting company to 'add extra value' at any time).
Github may be the current darling, but I recall when it was Google Code and Freshmeat. I even remember Codeplex for all the Microsoft stuff and even that now seems to be migrating to github.
So keeping Sourceforge going, and preparing it with some much nicer navigation and website functionality would go a long way towards being ready for when github stops being cool and starts to look pretty crappy. If SF could provide the kind of fancy management portal for a product with wikis and decent bug trackers, and possibly the return of their old compile farm, it'd compete favourably with github and we'd be free of a dangerous monoculture.
So I welcome our new source control and discussion overlords, lets hope they return to their glory days.
Maybe now i can unblock the entire site from ublock origin! Sourceforge actually being a decent site to download from?
What will happen next?
so happy, looking forward to another 10 years!
You guys need to advertise that far and wide. The reputation was earned from the scam tactics of the previous owners, and nobody will come back to see if it has changed if you dont make it a core part of your advertising.
The new sourceforge, under new management and it is back to the pure form with nothing shady going on.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Past 5 years? It's been this way for 10 or more.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They're going to add him to the great hosts file in the sky?
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
I like Ethan, used to read his scienceblogs column long before he popped up on slashdot.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Damn, so close!
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
The damage has been done and it is very hard to get trust back.
You gotta admit, buying slashdot and settling for a 7-digit uid doesn't make him seem like the brightest guy/gal. It's a bit like leading a military coup of some third world country and then keeping the rank of "sergeant"...
Log in or piss off.
I dunno. What with GitHub's management all leaving, culture change and all that, plus the debacle over the code of conduct, I don't think GitHub's position is unassailable.
Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)
I remember going to FM a little while back and being surprised to see it was basically shuttered. However, with that in mind I also recall getting some very odd looks from co-workers while browsing the site. The name makes it sound like some dicey shock/pr0n site.
Maybe bring back the premise of FM under a new name, or even under SF.
BTW, "whipslash", I'm assuming that the majority of revenue is going to come from either ads or possibly data-mining from comments etc...
One thing I'm happy to see is that - overall - desktop ads here are far more relevant to my needs/interests than most other sites. The only time I can even recall buying something from an ad was on here in the last few months.
However the roll-out/audio car ads still make me want to scream. Also, the mobile ads appear very generic and are annoying. A big block of "Apps you might like" including "Yahtzee", "Juice Jam" etc. Just because I'm on Android doesn't mean I want to play lame games that are probably sniffing my contacts (but hey, advertising some cool phone accessories might net some sales).
You guys should look into hiring some of the older /. and SF community members. Many of us actually remember when it was good here/there, and some would help you do it for cheap. Hell, I'll take minimum wage instead of my normal $75/hr consultation rates if you're willing to ask questions and listen to the bluntly honest answers.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Thank you for planning to clear out the sludge from SF downloads.
Thanks!!!
Well we are new owners who are correcting the wrongs. However, you are free to do as you please
You think they're going to take the word of random internet posters? No, they're looking to us for ideas, then evaluating thm in their own merits. That takes time, they're already promising to end APK's reign of annoyance but I'm sure they have to figure out how first; for many of us, he is worse than Timothy or Ethan.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I will meet the new boss. For drinks. Want me to let you know how it goes?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I disagree. If he came in and took over a low UID for the sake of appearances, I'd personally write off a lot of his messages as PR attempts. But to join in through the same route as everyone else to earn his rep by participating, not by owning a low UID*? I respect that.
* But don't underestimate the importance of that. They give you a Ferrari each year on your anniversary.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Ditto bub
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Yes, we do. This is protection for the developers against when SourceForge screws over the next Gimp or Nmap - the presence of a delete function adds credibility to the upcoming promises to never load Malware and will serve to restrain any future SourceForge dabblings in reputation-destroying shenanigans.
If you are legitimately worried about your favorite project going closed source, download the source while it is available. Developers should be free to leave if they want to.
If they really want a low UID - don't take over someone elses, just use something like -1. That being said, I'm in complete agreement with you.
It's not self evident to me that providing installers for certain open-source projects is a "bad thing". Even if it were, surely it would be optional, and surely someone interested in using the code would have the option of downloading a binary installer vs the raw source tree. So why is the presence of this seemingly useful feature causing people to host their projects elsewhere and threatening Sourceforge's reputation? What am I missing?
Oh, don't get my wrong, I respect it too. It's a bit of a running joke, now, I think. That being said, it'd sure cut down on the "who the hell is this dope and why should we listen to him" comments.
What?!? I only get a Jaguar. Except 2008, when for some reason they handed out a Subaru.
Log in or piss off.
Careful there!
Or I may just forget to resupply you with Depends...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I know this guy in Detroit. $1500 + airfare and he makes problems ... not be problems. PM me for details.
(best if read in a Russian accent)
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
No point in trying to post as AC when you're attaching your name to everything.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Actually you're probably right - I "know" it's 2016 but it doesn't really feel like it's any different from 2010 for me. I'm getting old.
I don't know if you can still catch up with github when it comes to collaboration workflow, but as a plain web hosting service for dynamic content you're still OK. I guess that if you can use the small window of opportunity that docker gives you, you might be able to regain your place.
I wish you well.
Emanuele
http://jbit.sourceforge.net
http://github.com/efornara/jbit
P.S.: I've read a hint about your https plans. That's great, but please make it optional! I would hate to leave you, as you still allow me to setup custom mime types and serve WML Pages to old feature phones.
and you're in no position to make demands of someone who will host your programs, maintain a site, foot the monthly internet bill,
Sure, then I will instead use github, or bitbucket or one of other such sites.
SF.net is the place that was serving adware/bundledcrap, and the alternatives did not. If they can at least guarantee to not do that again, maybe it can be considered, if there is some money and legally binding obligation behind that words.
Option to import project from Google Code would be nice: SourceForge is the only option for open-source Subversion hosting and some projects prefer Subversion these days.
I hope that it is more about APKs efforts to work around the AC posting limits than about banning all ACs. APK has admitted that he actively works around the /. posting limits, this is wrong. The posting limits on ACs are there to prevent abuse, (and your favorite, harassment like APK loves to dish out), not just for arbitrary reasons.
BUT, I never agree with silencing others, even though I have been a target of APKs harassment for about a year, I would never ask for him to be silenced, as everyone should be free to share their opinion.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Hmm, we do have APK's address...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I've actually gone to the trouble of digging up my old account I locked when Dice got involved to say this; "Thanks Whiplash for doing this so soon after you purchased the sites." I am sure a lot of people will watch developments intently. I wish you every success in efforts to salvage the reputations of both sites. It's needed, it's really needed.
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
Please don't feed the trolls :)
:)
(Down that way lies bitterness and poor decision-making
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I'm not so sure about timothy, I think it is a bunch of people using his account...either that or he has recently become an insomniac as he has been going a couple weeks straight without sleep otherwise.
StartWithABang can burn in hell though :) Forbes is the root of all evil, and linking there proves that he is a demon of some sort.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
these days I very seldom bother because people are more concerned with point scoring and arguing than actual discussion./quote
I disagree profusely! It totally isn't like that! ...Ahh, I see the issue... :)
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
APK, I find it absolutely awesome that I have you in such a tizzy that you can't even write coherently. You seem to think you are winning some kind of argument here when you haven't even argued anything in a coherent manner. Nobody thinks you are winning anything but you, and it is hilarious.
Please keep it up, you are proving me right about you with every post.
You filthy spammer/advertiser.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
So, Coren22 is a fake name, but you posting AC acting like a third party is totally not fake? You have some odd notions there, have you talked to your psych about them?
I stand behind my name of Coren22, while you post AC so you don't have to face the consequences of your posting. You know if you used an account, whether AlexSterr or APK, or whatever that your negative karma from being downmodded constantly would mean you would shortly not be able to post, while I maintain excellent karma by participating in the community and providing something beneficial to the community. I think that is why you feel the need to insult and try to denigrate me, because deep down you know that I am right, and that people actually accept advice and conversation from me.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Your fake name is Anonymous Coward, you hide behind it all the time because you know no one wants to read your diatribes. I however hide nothing especially not your failures you deem to be successes. You still don't know on a basic level how the TCP stack works, and it is obvious. Everyone can tell you know nothing about the subject by your posting history which is easily found in Google.
You stand for psychiatric illness, it is obvious you have some kind of obsessive condition, yet you try to claim I am the one who is brain damaged. I came out and admitted that I am on the autism spectrum, yet you hide behind the excuse that we don't know you so can't diagnose you. Keep the denial going, it is working so well for your health.
I have one account, I have explained this previously to you. I don't need sockpuppets, or 100 accounts to prove you wrong. People downmod you because you are a troll and most times you are offtopic. If you care so much about hosts files, post a story about it and you can comment all you want on topic.
Keep thinking it is worse to have a pseudonym instead of using proxies to keep posting AC despite being modded into oblivion by the majority of moderators.
At least I don't have to use 100s of proxies to post garbage like yours.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Call him all the names you like Coren22!
That is rich, coming from the king of insults. I didn't call you any names, I talled you what you are, a spammer and an advertiser. You thrust your advertisements on Slashdot for your product in response to every mention of Ad Block Plus. You spam Slashdot with your incoherent ramblings in response to everything disagreeing with you, and you spam Slashdot with your AC posts claiming to agree with you while using the exact same words you use.
How do your ramblings taste, since you haven't yet proven anything wrong but your own statements?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
It must suck having to wait 4 minutes between your posts. Perhaps if you would create an account it wouldn't take you so long to post your incoherent ramblings that you claim to have destroyed me with.
It really must humiliate you that someone half your age showed you up...I agree.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Nope, the cool thing is, you have to actually get something correct that I failed to get correct before you can "make me eat my words", since you never seem to even understand the mistakes you made, it would be a freaking miracle if you could actually catch me out with something. So, until you actually get something right, I will still stand behind everything I have posted. Keep up the crazy though, it really keeps me entertained.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Um, no you didn't tear me up, and the fact that you think you did is what I use as evidence of some kind of mental issue. Get yourself checked out, living with untreated mental illnesses is not healthy.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Totally! I know this one site that many tech people frequent, that you should definitely post -- wait a second ....
Yes that's a good idea!
Appreciate the support, friend
"Totally! I know this one site that many tech people used to frequent"
FTFY
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
We'll see. We have a lot of good stuff planned
We are not banning AC's. Just stemming constant APK spam.
Yes we will definitely look at fixing it
Ok we will
You're very welcome!
Thanks, much appreciated. I'll sign up as soon as you announce it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You don't own them. Even if you are secretly Whipslash.
Thank you for the clarification.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
You've still got fake download buttons, despite Google announcing that such sites will start getting actively blocked by Chrome.
You're getting paid to try to trick people into installing questionable software. Whether it's through "bundled" installers, fake download buttons, or anything else, it's too scummy to be associated with someone else's work.
Want to stop being treated like scum? Try honesty, rather than trying to screw and defraud your users.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
I would encourage you to heavily scrutinize any code that was written while dice was in charge. Hiding malware inside apparently legitimate software tends to be a pattern of behavior. If they would do it for user downloads, it is reasonable to expect they would sprinkle surprises in other places; I.e., source forge admin tools. By inheriting the infrastructure, you are effectively in the same boat the users who downloaded Filezilla were in. How do you trust the code?
Yes we will. We are in the process of examining it all in full.
Do you realize that Google AdX is serving most of these buttons? We are playing whack-a-mole at the moment trying to discover them all but anyone with an adsense account can push these buttons onto our site. Most advertisers try to make their Adsense ads look native by making them look like the site they are on. Since ours is a download site, its natural for them to try to make them look like download buttons. We're rolling out a feature soon where users can easily report the ads and we can take quick action and blacklist the ad (or advertiser).
I did notice that you're giving an ad network control over content on your page, and yes I did notice that it was Google.
The advertisers aren't creating download buttons to look "native", they're doing it to try to trick the user. You're getting your revenue from fraud. I suppose if you do create a reporting feature, the advertisers will then copy that too, so that instead of reporting the ad the user is led down a rabbit hole of redirects ending with a drive-by exploit.
How about subjecting all ads to human review before they're posted on your site? The flood of fraudulent ads would be reduced to a trickle if they knew each ad would be eyeballed before any users saw them.
As suggested by others, you could also change the design of the site so that the ads would be clearly separated from the content. Why allow advertisers to make their ads look like native content, unless you don't care what advertisers say with your brand?
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
No, we do not give ad networks control over content on our page. And yes you can call it tricking the user or looking native, but the fact is we are not placing those ads. There are thousands of advertisers trying to get these ads on our pages through Google AdX and other networks, and I said we would clamp down. It will be taken care of ASAP. No advertiser will be able to copy a reporting feature but you can keep bitching and moaning about the actions of the previous owners if you would like.
If you're allowing the ad network to place content on your page ("content" meaning anything visible to the user, or code executed by the browser) while disclaiming responsibility for that content, then you've handed control over content to the ad network. It's one of the internet's more unsavory innovations, and practically unheard of anywhere except internet advertising.
What I'm saying is, getting rid of the worst business practice you had doesn't make up for all the other bad practices that you allow to continue (the list is longer than just ads). I frankly don't care, as I use an ad blocker, and I only find myself going to sourceforge for projects that are so old that they haven't been maintained for years.
What I don't understand is, if no editorial control is exercised over the content of the ads, then why isn't there porn? Certainly it's profitable to advertise, so if it's an open submission process then at least some of the ads should be for porn. If not, then someone somewhere must be checking these ads for content. Why aren't they filtering out scams?
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
Because ad networks typically have at least a *modicum* of filters which would filter out spam. They don't allow advertisers of adult content. However, a download button can be considered non-deceptive if the download button does not look like our download button, and has the name and brand of the product you are actually downloading on the ad. You see these all over the internet and many times they are very clear. Let me be clear though, we will address these things we just need a bit longer to do it.
The occasional support from people does not excuse the intentional breaking of the posting rules. You are still intentionally working around posting limits of AC posters so that you can spam and harass.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Yeah, keep up the attacks APK, no one thinks this isn't you. Keep it up, I'm sure eventually you will win an argument...eventually.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
APK, declaring something to be does not make it so. No matter how many times you try to claim you have exposed tech blunders (that don't actually exist except in your mind) or lies, it doesn't make it suddenly true. You still are saying the exact same things, but have yet to actually answer anything. Here is the string:
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
So, when will you submit to a code review?
Why would anyone "steal" your software...you know the same software you offer for free?
Why is it acceptable for you to utilize other people's host file records in your product, but you are terrified people will steal your software?
Why do you persist in talking about the name resolution performance of the favorites section of your hosts file while glossing over the considerable performance loss to anything not in the hosts file?
Why do you persist in talking about how DNS servers are vulnerable to attacks, but totally gloss over hosts file performance being abysmal in Windows?
When will you start seeking treatment for the obvious psychological disorders that cause you to stalk and harass people who try to help you improve?
Your constant attacks don't bother me one bit, I find them to be hilarious. Keep it up, I can do this all day.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?