
SourceForge and Slashdot Have Been Sold - JohnTHaller
http://fossforce.com/2016/01/sourceforge-and-slashdot-have-been-sold/
======
a_e_k
Sounds like this can only be good for SourceForge after the previous
scuzziness:

> "When I say trusted – I mean trusted," he went on. "We disagree with some of
> the previous monetization strategies from an industry and business
> perspective, and have immediate plans to discontinue programs inconsistent
> with our being a trusted and reliable resource for the entire open source
> community.

I wish them luck. I'm not thrilled by the GitHub monoculture.

~~~
gosub
at least a github exodus is just a _git clone_ away

~~~
johannes1234321
Except that every other site links to your repo on GitHub and all the Issues,
pull requests, Wiki and Website are there.

~~~
dozzie
Well, hosting everything with a service that is backed by a company and over
which you have no control was never a good move. See how Rainer Gerhards hosts
his rsyslog
([http://blog.gerhards.net/2013_12_01_archive.html](http://blog.gerhards.net/2013_12_01_archive.html)):
one canonical repository, and GitHub as a peer. Given git's distributed
nature, there can be as many clones in as many services (Gitlab, BitBucket,
others) as maintainers deem sensible.

------
socceroos
Slashdot was a big part of my early years in the tech industry. It had it's
own cultural quirks, but overall was a great place to get general 'news for
nerds'. I still visit every so often as it gives a slightly different angle on
the industry to HN. Much like lxer.com.

~~~
sixdimensional
I for one welcome our new corporate overlords! f1rst p0st! How about a Beowulf
cluster of those??

Ah, the good old days... :)

~~~
JoshTriplett
BSD is dying. Netcraft confirms it.

Slashdot is also where I first saw
[http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt](http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt)
posted.

Anyone remember seeing the occasional "(Score: 5, Troll)" comment, which only
happened when a comment got downvoted as "Troll" and then upvoted as
"Underrated" (which didn't change the "tag")?

~~~
adekok
Having been involved in the anti-spam thing for a while, I can simplify the
"spam solutions" checklist to two items:

1) Do you have a solution to one piece of the spam problem?

    
    
      ( ) Yes - go away, you don't solve the whole spam problem.
      ( ) No  - go away, you're not helping to solve the spam problem
    

2) Do you have a solution to the whole spam problem?

    
    
      ( ) Yes - go away, you're a FUSTTSP scammer
      ( ) No  - go away, you're not helping to solve the spam problem.
    
    

The _explicit approach_ by the SMTP people was both of the above at the same
time. Incremental solutions were derided as "the spammers will just try
something else". Major fixes to SMTP were derided as "it takes a decade to
deploy a new protocol".

Well, it's been a decade since I was involved. Changes to SMTP practices mean
that I've got jump through more hoops to prove my worthiness when I send
email. But the amount of spam I'm getting hasn't gone down.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Searching turns up _zero_ results for "FUSTTSP" apart from your comment. Can
you elaborate?

~~~
adekok
It was from memory.. it's FUSSP:

[http://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/you-might-
be.html](http://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/you-might-be.html)

------
mixologic
> "Indeed, he promised to return SourceForge to its glory days, not only by
> undoing the harm that’s been done, but by bringing rapid development and
> much needed improvements to the site’s infrastructure."

I sure hope that means downloading projects from sourceforge can happen on a
modern timescale. I have more bandwidth in my bedroom than their
infrastructure.

~~~
lgas
In all fairness, you don't have to move the amount of malware through your
bedroom that SourceForge moves through their network.

------
kriro
I haven't been on /. forever but I think a strategy focused more around
gossipy/soapy topics and embracing the long tail of your (stereo)typical IT
worker (tech gadgets, scify, comics etc.) would be decent. HN covers the
"techy" and "startupy" segments fairly well.

I have no idea how SourceForge will turn out. In my mind it's tarnished
forever due to the crapware shenanigans. They have some "community building"
features that seem valuable, used to have a decent brand name and it's never
bad to have an extra place for storing FLOSS.

~~~
yitchelle
So true for SourceForge. There are lots and lots of lesson learned items in
there for folks at Github and friends. Please take note and make better!

------
ars
I wish them every success. I used to use both sites extensively. I still have
accounts on both (and a "coveted" 5 digit user ID on slashdot), but I rarely
go there these days.

Maybe they'll turn things around.

~~~
dhoe
I have a sub-20k user ID. I use it to remind myself that reading stuff on the
web doesn't make you rich.

~~~
lmm
I imagine a sub-20k account would go for a certain amount of money.

~~~
igravious
Why so?

------
kiba
They have been sold....how many times now?

~~~
jonathankoren
Three times.

1st) Blockstackers Intergalactic (Slashdot's original parent) sold to
Andover.net. Andover.net got bought by VA Linux. VA Linux changes it's name to
Geeknet. 2nd) Geeknet sells sells Slashdot and Sourceforge to Dice. 3rd)Dice
sells it to these guys.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
So 6 [sets of] owners.

When Andover bought VA Linux one of the assets they bought was /., so that
should count as a sale.

------
blakesterz
I still wish Malda and the other guys writing the Slashcode would've realized
that the future was not in blogging/advertising but in making Slashcode great.
They had a good start on building something just like Drupal and a big head
start but they never saw that as a business. (not like I saw it either, sadly)

------
JohnTHaller
As part of the nostalgia, I present my favorite Slashdot April Fool's design
scheme, "OMG!!! Ponies!!!":
[http://i.imgur.com/7tmqgN9.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/7tmqgN9.jpg)

------
homarp
I recommend [http://alterslash.org/](http://alterslash.org/) as a "real time"
best of of what's on slashdot.

------
frik
The previous owner was pretty stupid. The Slashdot "Beta" was almost as
catastrophic as the Digg.com fiasco. Well good that Beta vanished, good for
Slashdot.

[http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2014/02/slashd...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2014/02/slashdots-new-interface-could-kill-what-keeps-slashdot-
relevant/)

------
aikah
SourceForge could have been a wonderfull thing, especially when it comes to
serving binaries from OSS. They destroyed their reputation with them bundling
software will malware or hijacking projects... They could have opened their
infrastructure to commercial orgs for instance, to build then deliver software
... No, they had to go the cheapest route and violate their core user's trust.

------
yuhong
Slashdot thread: [http://meta.slashdot.org/story/16/01/29/0247219/slashdot-
and...](http://meta.slashdot.org/story/16/01/29/0247219/slashdot-and-
sourceforge-sold-now-under-new-management)

------
ngtszman
that's the old day when open source is a new things to MSFT / Apple.

------
mratzloff
Why on earth would anyone buy SourceForge? It's a money pit.

~~~
frik
Sourceforge doesn't host binary downloads themselves. Big free mirrors like
HEAnet host the files.

------
davidgerard
"Users have been contacted and reassured, both of them."

