GitHub lost $66 million last year so it's not quite solid yet. There's a lot of active projects committing code on SF despite the fact that there are a lot of inactive ones. We will make it easier to see which ones are active soon.
It's very much end-user focused: provides an intuitive download interface for non-developers, reviews, discovery tools etc. Developers also get detailed download statistics, mailing lists, and more. It's not really a zero-sum game. You can use GH primarily but use the GitHub Sync tool to take advantage of both platforms. There's a good comment from Reddit (u/badsectoracula) I just came across that put it well:
There is one thing that SourceForge does that basically no other site does: it puts a focus on the user side of things. GitHub, GitLab, Gitwhatever, BitBucket, etc focus too much on the developer side to the detriment of the users.
It is a bit hard to explain what i mean, but to take a look check this SF project: right at the top you have a big fat green "Download" button, rating from other users with reviews, number of downloads (so you can judge its popularity), a status indicator (beta here), ways to share it with others and even get notifications when the developer makes any updates. And that is at the "header". Right below you have link for the project's files (downloads, what the user cares about, not a VCS view), support, tickets and even a discussion forum with categories (i really dislike how in GitHub people use the bug tracker as a forum).
Other projects have mailing lists, news, etc. For example in 7zip's project page you get news and a series of screenshots.
As a user you also get to see the license of the project, the supported OSes and the category it is in - after all a particular project might not fit exactly what you need, but other projects in that category might be better choices.
And yes, of course, there is also the code tab where you can browse the repository, but unlike practically every other project hosting site, SourceForge does not impose any specific VCS nor is designed around it. Hell, if you want (and many projects on the site do exactly that) you can just provide source code releases and not use a VCS - or use another site to host the VCS.
Honestly, the amount of information and user focus that SourceForge has is beyond competition. And sadly it seems the vast majority of developers do not really care about their users, because not only SF has lost its popularity (which is understandable considering the actions from their previous owners) but recently i was looking for some sort of "sourceforge-like" software i could install in my own VPS to put my projects and there was nothing. I could find tons of GitHub wannabe clones in every fad language made the last few years (always tied to a single VCS - usually Git - of course) but none that had something as simple as a "Downloads" area.
The closest i've found is CodingTeam, a French "forge" written in PHP. It is actually quite nice (and if i'm honest i like how it looks better than the new "let's quadruple the size of all the things" SourceForge theme) and even has some features i haven't seen in other similar sites like support for translations. But if you look around you'd find pretty much the entire Internet ignoring it - i've only found a single mention on Reddit from 7 years ago that went ignored and no word about it on Hacker News or any other place where programmers meet.
Which, IMO, sucks because more often than not as a user i do not really care about the repository of a project - i care about releases, documentation, discussions, support and all that stuff.
Yeah I didn't like them adding adware to downloads either so I bought SourceForge and removed the adware. Doesn't really matter if we convince anyone else, we're just gonna do right by the 1 million daily users and 430,00 projects there
FirehoseFavorites is purely user voted content. Something new we are testing. Requires zero editor input to make it to the front page, just user votes from the firehose.
First of all, I didn't mod your post down. I modded the parent down. Second of all, I wasn't calling you rude nor saying you attacked anyone. Again, I was talking about the parent comment by the_bionic_lemming.
Slashdot owns SourceForge now. Since we took over in 2016 we've been improving. https://arstechnica.com/inform... No more bundled adware, all projects are scanned for malware, https downloads & hosting, & more. Big redesign coming soon too
For those who don't know, my company acquired SourceForge along with Slashdot and have been improving it. Redesign coming soon as well. http://arstechnica.com/informa...
Slashdot Mirror
GitHub lost $66 million last year so it's not quite solid yet. There's a lot of active projects committing code on SF despite the fact that there are a lot of inactive ones. We will make it easier to see which ones are active soon.
There is one thing that SourceForge does that basically no other site does: it puts a focus on the user side of things. GitHub, GitLab, Gitwhatever, BitBucket, etc focus too much on the developer side to the detriment of the users.
It is a bit hard to explain what i mean, but to take a look check this SF project: right at the top you have a big fat green "Download" button, rating from other users with reviews, number of downloads (so you can judge its popularity), a status indicator (beta here), ways to share it with others and even get notifications when the developer makes any updates. And that is at the "header". Right below you have link for the project's files (downloads, what the user cares about, not a VCS view), support, tickets and even a discussion forum with categories (i really dislike how in GitHub people use the bug tracker as a forum).
Other projects have mailing lists, news, etc. For example in 7zip's project page you get news and a series of screenshots.
As a user you also get to see the license of the project, the supported OSes and the category it is in - after all a particular project might not fit exactly what you need, but other projects in that category might be better choices.
And yes, of course, there is also the code tab where you can browse the repository, but unlike practically every other project hosting site, SourceForge does not impose any specific VCS nor is designed around it. Hell, if you want (and many projects on the site do exactly that) you can just provide source code releases and not use a VCS - or use another site to host the VCS.
Honestly, the amount of information and user focus that SourceForge has is beyond competition. And sadly it seems the vast majority of developers do not really care about their users, because not only SF has lost its popularity (which is understandable considering the actions from their previous owners) but recently i was looking for some sort of "sourceforge-like" software i could install in my own VPS to put my projects and there was nothing. I could find tons of GitHub wannabe clones in every fad language made the last few years (always tied to a single VCS - usually Git - of course) but none that had something as simple as a "Downloads" area.
The closest i've found is CodingTeam, a French "forge" written in PHP. It is actually quite nice (and if i'm honest i like how it looks better than the new "let's quadruple the size of all the things" SourceForge theme) and even has some features i haven't seen in other similar sites like support for translations. But if you look around you'd find pretty much the entire Internet ignoring it - i've only found a single mention on Reddit from 7 years ago that went ignored and no word about it on Hacker News or any other place where programmers meet.
Which, IMO, sucks because more often than not as a user i do not really care about the repository of a project - i care about releases, documentation, discussions, support and all that stuff.
Yeah I didn't like them adding adware to downloads either so I bought SourceForge and removed the adware. Doesn't really matter if we convince anyone else, we're just gonna do right by the 1 million daily users and 430,00 projects there
Improving is the aim. This is just something we are testing out to see how it works.
FirehoseFavorites is purely user voted content. Something new we are testing. Requires zero editor input to make it to the front page, just user votes from the firehose.
This is technology news. It's not vitriol.
No worries. My bad too. Just got ruffled by the original comment.
First of all, I didn't mod your post down. I modded the parent down. Second of all, I wasn't calling you rude nor saying you attacked anyone. Again, I was talking about the parent comment by the_bionic_lemming.
I responded to a rude comment attacking one of my editors. Weird that it's upsetting to people
Thanks for the feedback.
What exactly are you upset about? That I responded to a rude comment with a little rudeness of my own? I'm not your butler
No, just me, and one person
Cool. See ya
Actually it was me. Money wasn't spent. Hence "Slacker News". BAH HUMBUG to you to
Slashdot owns SourceForge now. Since we took over in 2016 we've been improving. https://arstechnica.com/inform... No more bundled adware, all projects are scanned for malware, https downloads & hosting, & more. Big redesign coming soon too
Slashdot has always had occasional big political stories. God forbid you scroll past it.
Open a support ticket and we will delete your projects. All of your bullet points have been or will be addressed.
I was a /. and SF fan for a long time. Thought they deserved better
We still have over 1 million users per day and 500,000 projects hosted at SourceForge. Would rather do right by them than just start a new brand.
Thanks!
We acquired SourceForge and Slashdot both in January of this year
We eliminated all adware when we acquired SourceForge. Can't speak for the previous owners
SourceForge and Slashdot have been owned jointly for many years
For those who don't know, my company acquired SourceForge along with Slashdot and have been improving it. Redesign coming soon as well. http://arstechnica.com/informa...
I don't think it makes him look bad.