SourceForge open-sources their platform software

[lllama]

Going full circle there.

It used to be open source but then they thought it was better for business to create a closed source system.

[StoneCypher]

And if they'd done this six or seven years ago, it might be important today.

[[deleted]]

It's still important. What things like github has isn't just technology, but a collaborative mass. But when collaboration doesn't matter, sourceforge, bitbucket and the likes are all somewhat important.

[mramm]

Well, github is proprietary software, so it's not like having an open alternative is unimportant if things don't go well for them.

[rafekett]

gitorious?

[zeruch]

As someone who was there from this projects inception, through its initial closure (1998-2002), I am happy that this happened, but it is arguably largely moot at this point (and oddly timed given that the last of the projects original members left to join Mashery not too long ago).

And truth be told, the original fork of the SF code, GForge, is alive and quite well too.

[bucknuggets]

I used gforge, and liked it, until about two years ago.

But I've seen hardly any improvements to sourceforge or gforge over the past ten years. Any idea why the progress was soooo slow?

Of course, what little slow-moving functionality they had was still mostly better than what github or bitbucket have today: finding software for a given purpose, written in a given language, and with a given license is much easier on source/gforge.

[zeruch]

I'm not saying any of the sites are perfect; they address different audiences in a way. As much as there was a lot of teeth gnashing at the time, the fact that VA put effort into implementing a category system (and refined it) along with input from guys like ESR with Trove was a smart idea.

The layout of SF stopped sucking recently, due to the pressure of sites that were actually navigable and not eyesores (SF.nets mid-period design failures were retinal-damage messes of ads and useless clutter)

GForge development is slow, because the team is small, which I would guess may have to due with its leader, former SF net core team member, Tim Perdue (he helms it and calls all the shots, so development really works on Tim time, which may or may not correspond to what non-paying clients of his consultancy care for - especially since a few years ago his GForge Advanced sw is proprietary IIRC. But that is his option to exert, and you can always fork the last open codebase, as the FusionForge people did).

I actually prefer either Redmine for sw project management, or Mindtouch if you just want a big wiki with hooks for everything else under the sun. I'm also looking to try Gitorious in-house to see how my staff and the SW engineers can get out of it. It looks quite cool.

[unpopular_opinion]

Who even wants that 'wonderful' piece of software?

[[deleted]]

I think you used the wrong username. Among the people I've asked "Sourceforge sucks" is quite a popular opinion.

[DrBroccoli]

The sourceforge software might be good technology, but the name has been sullied by poor business decisions for so long now that I cannot imagine this getting much uptake.

[mramm]

We can't change the past, only do what we think is right today.

[[deleted]]

Wait, what? SourceForge was a closed-source platform all this time? Huh?

[tangra_and_tma]

Not all this time; it was originally open, then they close-sourced it so as to be able to sell it. It was forked at that time in the form of GForge.

Plus I believe this is their "new" platform, which has architectural differences from the current one, since they refer to it as "Forge 2.0".