
Exodus from GitHub, but just not to SourceForge - jonymo
https://medium.com/@jonykatz/exodus-from-github-but-just-not-to-sourceforge-690845933cf7
======
lalos
I don't understand why the people have this huge team mentality. If this team
does that, it wrong, if another does it it is ok. Google cancelled Google Code
with no backlash, or at least not to this level. Microsoft is trying to save a
vital company in the open source community that didn't even have a CEO or any
path to profitability and people react like they are going to ban all projects
that are not C#. Not only in tech, but elsewhere I see a trend of just
following a herd mentality instead of judging every action by it's own weight
or at least let it play out. Of course, if you are afraid have a plan B or
backup what ever you see fit but we need more critical thinking in our daily
lives.

~~~
alexeiz
> Microsoft is trying to save a vital company...

So Microsoft is in the "company saving" business now? This couldn't be farther
from the truth. They bought Github not to save it, but to use it as a resource
for whatever goals they deem appropriate. And I really doubt Microsoft's goals
align with open source well.

~~~
zgramana
SMH. I used to work for Nat at Xamarin before it was acquired by MSFT. GitHub
and Xamarin have had a long and deep relationship going back to at least 2012
(that I’m aware of anyway).

Xamarin was run on GitHub. We never used any other version control system.
GitHub used Xamarin extensively as well. There were a lot of overlapping
social graphs between the engineers of both as well.

Miguel and Nat both helped to make F/OSS and Linux what it is today—thank them
if you like GNOME. Nat represents MSFT in this deal, and that’s great news for
F/OSS enthusiasts everywhere.

Nat and Scott Guthrie aren’t responsible for the “sins of their fathers.” Time
to move on from the Microsoft hating. That era has been over for a while.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
Yesterday, I only had to worry about storing my data on GitHub if I was in
direct competition with them on the integrated SCM business. Any other code
wasn't in opposition to their interests. We, generally, were welcome.

Today my code on GitHub is in competition with the myriad projects that
Microsoft publishes. And even if I stick with Windows coding, they too can and
will incorporate it into their stack.

Tl;Dr. Doing stuff on GitHub is directly competing with Microsoft's own
business.

~~~
zgramana
That's a fair concern, and one they now will now have to adequately address in
order to keep users content.

But unless you are AWS or Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft isn't competing
with you. They may have similar products/services out there at some level, but
these days, if it's not driving a lot of Azure adoption/retention then it's
not something Microsoft is really going to compete against. That even goes for
Windows. Microsoft is putting increasing amounts of money into the Linux
ecosystem these days as well.

------
yodon
This exodus is precisely why Microsoft bought github, and why Microsoft built
VS Code, and why it is open sourcing .NET Core and why it is shipping Linux
integration into Windows and all the other huge moves the company is making.

They recognize they lost the hearts and minds of developers. They are fixing
that. Not fixed. Fixing. It’ll take the better part of a decade and some
people will never change.

Five years ago no one would have expected Microsoft to ship an amazing editor
on Linux and OSX. Its great to have such an amazing development team once
again actively believing “developers, developers, developers” is the key to
success. I can’t wait to see what they do with GitHub as they work to regain
relevance and interest.

~~~
briffle
Yet most of their other tools still don't work on Linux, and have no public
roadmap to, or any kind of comments on.. I'm waiting on my MS Teams client....
I can understand the older software, that might have lots of history, legacy
libraries, etc, but Teams is a brand new tool they are just releasing.. They
have a chrome plugin, but it requires you install an MSI.

~~~
briffle
Sorry, to clarify my frustration, the windows client for Teams is an electron
based application.

------
loganabbott
Almost nothing in this article is accurate. We’ve been doing everything we can
to improve SourceForge and we did not hide anything. The writer has an axe to
grind for some reason, and maybe his anger is warranted, but it's definitely
directed at the wrong people. [https://sourceforge.net/blog/introducing-the-
new-sourceforge...](https://sourceforge.net/blog/introducing-the-new-
sourceforge/)

~~~
mkirklions
>Removed bundled adware from projects

Too late, already lost my trust.

This was unexcusable to let happen years ago and was one of the scummiest
things I experienced in the software world.

I havent used sourceforge in years and have gone out of my way to avoid it.
They cannot be trusted.

~~~
EthanHeilman
They need to rebrand. Saying "download my new project from sourceforge" is an
easy way to get cheap laughs from developers. I'm not saying this to dunk on
sourceforge, but to make a point that the brand has so much ill will, broken
trust and baggage associated with it that the first step should be a rename.

------
superflyguy
I don't think a single person is considering moving from GitHub to
Sourceforge.

~~~
craftyguy
No kidding. Sourceforge is the future of github, in the best case. Ads
everywhere, binay spyware injected into your projects, etc.

~~~
TheChaplain
You are talking about the old Sourceforge, since their recent acquisition
they've done a great deal to clean up their act.

~~~
Voloskaya
If people want to ditch GitHub because of Microsoft's actions 10 years ago,
you can be sure they won't forgive SourceForge last year's actions... Or that
would be some pretty heavy cognitive dissonance.

~~~
loganabbott
It was 3 years ago, and completely different ownership.

~~~
Voloskaya
Microsoft has a new CEO, and all major execs have been replaced. This is
apparently not enough, so I hardly see how the situation of SourceForge is
better in this regard.

~~~
mort96
Even with all new execs and a new CEO, Microsoft's expensive operating system
still features ads in the start menu. They still troll OSS projects with their
patents. Their software still includes telemetry which can't (easily) be
disabled.

------
Arubis
Arguments about migration itself aside, using SourceForge as a destination
would last have occurred to me about 15 years ago. Very puzzling title.

~~~
throw_away2
It's like reading an article about how people don't use freshmeat any more.
Freshmeat is apparently now owned by the same people as sourceforge and
slashdot, so when they get that time machine back to 1999 hooked up, they're
going to be rolling in the money.

------
grolimpio
I'm not sure if this will be good or bad for GitHub in the long run (it might
actually bring some benefits to GitHub users, by adding more free services,
e.g. free private repository), but still, Microsoft as a corporation is not
open source friendly, as far as I know, the company still operates its own in-
house patent troll and targeting open source related projects/services.

This is an old article, but I don't think a lot has changed since then:
[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100033867/index.htm?source=yahoo_quote)

If anyone knows if they have stopped making money suing or making dodge deals
with Linux/Android vendors, I'd love to know, if so, I'd start to believe that
they, as a corporation, are becoming more open source friendly.

There is a big difference in buying patents for the company's own protection,
and buying patents for making money trolling other companies. And
unfortunately M$ is on the second group, making money as a patent troll.

------
prdonahue
"Microsoft bought GitHub? Let's move everything to SourceForge!" \-- said no
developer, ever.

------
nimbius
even if the peanut gallery is still out on whether this is a 'smart move' from
microsoft or not, the point in the article is real. Sourceforge and Gitlab are
both having serious issues keeping pace with the number of users moving their
projects.

gitlabs grafana instances are all but completely unresponsive as of this post.
Timeouts and such from the web UI were rampant as of 0700am PST but they seem
to be under control.

If i were a gambling man, I'd venture this to be the worst decision Microsoft
has made since they hoovered up Minecraft for six billion dollars only to be
left to watch PUBG and fortnight run miles past it, and multiple open source
server implementations show up.

~~~
lgl
_the worst decision Microsoft has made since they hoovered up Minecraft for
six billion dollars only to be left to watch PUBG and fortnight run miles past
it_

How is Minecraft in the same bucket as PUBG or Fortnite? Also, Microsoft
bought Minecraft some 3 years before PUBG even launched. It has sold about 144
million copies and has 75 million monthly users. It's the second best-selling
video game of all time behind Tetris. How is that a "worst decision"?

------
hungerstrike
How can we actually quantify this alleged exodus? I'd like to see which
projects are moving.

