
How far the once-mighty SourceForge has fallen - danparsonson
http://www.gluster.org/2013/08/how-far-the-once-mighty-sourceforge-has-fallen/
======
haberman
For the youngins out there, 10-15 years ago SourceForge was like GitHub is
now. It was extremely popular and reputable for open-source hosting. I
remember thinking that one of the first considerations when naming a new
project was: is MYPROJECTNAME.sourceforge.net available?

Never expected to see it decline into the spammy sketch-ville that it is now.

~~~
charonn0
It's like a swanky hotel in a nice neighborhood deciding to start renting
rooms by the hour.

------
ck2
What might be really dangerous is I think they also run rpmforge (aka
repoforge) and many people use them on servers for yum updates as they have
newer packages sometimes.

If they start messing with the releases for servers, we've got big problems.

Wait, no I might be wrong about this, I really thought they were related but
rpmforge might be a completely different project.

Yeah I am probably wrong based on this old page:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20060208035034/http://rpmforge.ne...](http://web.archive.org/web/20060208035034/http://rpmforge.net/about.php)

They just re-used the "forge" name which fine but confused me and I guess I
assumed it was run by sourceforge awhile back.

Sourgeforge however is owned by Slashdot's parent company, of that I am
virtually positive.

~~~
hkmurakami
That parent company would be GeekNet, Inc.
[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=GKNT+Profile](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=GKNT+Profile)

~~~
Zirro
"In September 2012, Dice Holdings acquired SourceForge from its previous owner
Geeknet" says Wikipedia.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SourceForge#Acquisition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SourceForge#Acquisition)

~~~
cothomps
Correct - the various companies have been re-orged into a slightly separate
entity called "Slashdot Media":

[http://slashdotmedia.com](http://slashdotmedia.com)

------
jpswade
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gluster.org%2F2013%2F08%2Fhow-
far-the-once-mighty-sourceforge-has-fallen%2F)

------
ChuckMcM
Short version; our author objects to how SourceForge has been monetizing their
traffic.

I didn't particularly like the tone, it seemed pretty mocking to me. I did not
feel like that was called for.

I will suggest that at some point, if you live long enough, you will cross
paths with someone you knew as a young person, someone you liked and
respected, who was either charged with robbery or who was earning money in a
way that you don't condone. I would ask that you judge carefully at that
point. It happened to me when I drove by a friend from high school who was in
the median strip asking stopped traffic for money.

Living in the world requires things, supplies, water, food, housing. Unless
you can make those things on your own, you're stuck trading money for them.
And to trade money, you have to get money. The longer you don't have enough
money the lower and lower your standards tend to go. Some folks sadly decide
to simply stop trying and check out of the system permanently. Life is real.

So when you see a site like SourceForge, you might ask what happened, or
perhaps what changed, but it doesn't get you any points for judging them
harshly for trying to survive. GitHub is the new hawtness and I love what
those folks are doing, but I've not seen the press release that says they are
operationally profitable yet, or even cash flow positive. That will change,
and when it changes you may see them having to push "partner" software your
way, they may have some other plan by then, or they may just sort of evaporate
in some giant acqui-hire [1].

[1] Personally I think that Github being bought by, or displaced by, an
infrastructure service play like Amazon's AWS is the most likely outcome.

~~~
dasil003
As far as I know Github has _always_ been profitable.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That is entirely possible, I found this definitive statement from their press
release when they raised $100MM from Horowitz:

 _" We've done all this without any outside investment. Our company has been
profitable for years, is growing fast, and doesn't need money. So why
bother?"_

And they went on to raise $100M. Presumably their business model scales with
their feature set. I hope this continues for them as I like their service and
their approach.

------
njharman
SourceForge has been a POS and dead to me for many years.

I'm not sure it ever achieved "mightyness". Back when VA failed at what they
were trying to do and started SourceForge, it was needed and they deserve
praise for trail-blazing / attempting something big. But, I never really felt
they carried through successfully.

------
M4v3R
The sad thing is that strategy works and it works quite well. Most people that
are not very technical will just click "Next" and "Agreed" blindly to complete
software installation. I've seen numerous PCs plagued with toolbars and
crapware for that specific reason. I always try to educate them to _always_
read what's on screen and never agree for the "toolbar thing", but it's mostly
a lost fight.

~~~
shubb
After some resistance from my family (and 8 virus infections), I managed to
steer my grandad onto Linux.

He wasn't a hugely skilled computer user to start with, just knowing a few
patterns of clicks to open a web browser or a word document. I made him a
little laminated card next to his screen explaining how to do the few things
he needed to do.

It's been 2 years, and not a support call.

My only regret is checking his history to figure out where the viruses were
coming from.

~~~
olavgg
This my experience also. In Norway if you want to log in to your bank you need
a friggin Java Applet. With all the security issues with the Java applet this
year, maintaining the Java installation became really painful for my
grandfather.

So I suggested Ubuntu with Unity, configured for automatic updating of
software in background. I first gave him a new computer with a fresh
installation, so he could try it for a few weeks first. Surprisingly it went
very well (I usually have a few minor problems myself). He learned to use
Unity within just a few minutes. He could use it with the Norwegian
language(as he don't know english), and it worked great with increased DPI for
less strain on his eyes.

Now it's been a few months, and he has not complained once! In fact, he tells
me only good things about it! About how much faster it is, how much easier it
is to read and how much easier it is to use the computer now.

While Unity is not a very useful desktop environment for myself, it is
certainly great for people who mostly need easy access to a few applications.

~~~
zokier
> In Norway if you want to log in to your bank you need a friggin Java Applet.
> With all the security issues with the Java applet this year, maintaining the
> Java installation became really painful for my grandfather.

Oh this sounds painfully familiar. Every time I assist my father I notice Ask
toolbar. I occasionally uninstall it, but of course it reappears with the
updates. Well, at least I know that he is installing the updates so that's a
good thing. But seriously Oracle, do you really need those couple of bucks
from Ask?

~~~
derekp7
One way to block it -- create a file in the place of the directory where Ask
instlals (such as c:\Program Files\Ask). Give the file read only / system
attributes. Most installers don't know how to deal with failing to create
directory because a file exists by that name. I've used this trick to block a
number of regular malware from reinstalling, along with Ask, and whatever
else.

------
jacquesm
The mighty gluster blog seems to have fallen as well.

"error establishing database connection"

------
yogo
> _With their recent changes, users downloading from SourceForge now receive a
> special closed source installer which attempts to foist unrelated third
> party software onto them._

I think this deserves an obligatory "if you aren't paying for the product, you
are the product." It seems to always turn out that way. After all, these
projects are popular because they are good, and they are good because the
developer or developers commit the time to develop, test, and support these
projects. Naturally, there has to be a way to make money in order to keep
these projects going, hence the Dice move. I'm not saying I agree with it, but
I think it's reasonable. In other words, there is no such thing as a free
lunch.

------
laymil
LWN had a similar feature posted yesterday which has significantly more
background information.
[http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/564250/0a106d6379c0d741/](http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/564250/0a106d6379c0d741/)

------
harrytuttle
Agree entirely. SourceForge is unfortunately one of those places that puts me
off projects these days. It's a baron land of advertising and poorly
maintained products that just add noise.

~~~
tubs
A baron land would be a land ruled by a baron, a barren land is what you see
Sourceforge as.

~~~
PaulHoule
I thought that SourceForge was a barren land years ago, at least ever since
they started putting interstitial ads in the downloads.

As someone who sits in front of Windows but does a lot of development over ssh
in Unix this is slap in the face. There are both manual and automatic ways to
get the real url that you could type into axel, curl or wget, but it just
shows a lack of respect for customers.

I made a point to keep open source projects away from sourceforge because it
was a ghetto, the same reason I didn't want to be seen on myspace. Just
knowing a project is on sourceforge would bias me to think the project is not
worth thinking about.

~~~
Dylan16807
Right click and copy the url at the top of the page? I don't understand what
the problem is with showing an ad underneath it.

------
616c
I cannot access the article as the server is down right now, but saw a summary
on a forum. [0] Was this not one of the first major no-no's of computer law in
the user, starting with cases like Specht vs. Netscape? [1]

[0]
[http://inagist.com/all/370801094563467264/](http://inagist.com/all/370801094563467264/)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specht_v._Netscape_Communicati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specht_v._Netscape_Communications_Corp).

------
JohnTHaller
The article gets a few things _very_ wrong. First off, there are no drive-by
installers. It's an offer-based installer. Meaning that when you run it, you
get a single offer of an additional product. Second, it's offering you either
trialware (a trial version of a for-sale product that they hope you buy after
trying) or adware (like an Ask.com toolbar to ad to your browser). The author
of this blog post is either outright lying about it doing drive-by-installers
and malware or is clueless about what the terminology actually means.

The last time this was posted on HN, I did a quick writeup on my understanding
of it (reposted here):

"For the curious, this is an optional program at SourceForge being offered to
developers as a way to monetize their work. The developer needs to
specifically request it. SourceForge gets a cut, so does the developer. The
installer is their first stab at this process and is using the bundling
technology from Ask.com. As offer-based installers go, this one is about as
good as it gets. It makes a single offer and has an Accept and Decline button
with the user selecting whichever one they want (not a pre-checked box
accepting the offer above a Next/Continue button). If accepted, the installer
installs the offered software and it gets a standard entry in Windows'
Add/Remove Programs that works as expected. If declined, the installer
continues. The installer then downloads the originally-requested software.

The two issues with the current installer are that (1) it is served in place
of the requested file with no indication that a substitution is made as the
user downloads and (2) it requests admin rights before it starts downloading
the software, which can be a security issue. Roberto (who posted the article)
has stated that they are working on #1 in terms of the text shown on
SourceForge as you select to download and download. As for #2, there may be
some ways to rework the installer so this is not an issue. I'll mention it to
him when I speak to him.

SourceForge has one other revenue-share program with developers where you
place the SourceForge-branded download buttons on your own website that link
to your downloads on SourceForge and you get a small cut of the ad revenue
made from the download page.

If I recall correctly, SourceForge has been losing money for a few years now.
Dice Holdings picked up SourceForge and Slashdot while Geek.com kept
ThinkGeek.com, so they are now separate entities. These new experiments are
attempts to get SourceForge to be self-sustaining/profitable. Ad revenue alone
likely won't cut it.

Unfortunately, Google Code, Github and others don't offer the full breadth of
services that SourceForge does for open source projects. Google Code, Github,
and others have all ditched binary downloads, so SourceForge is one of the
only providers to make binary downloads available to Windows and Mac user at
no charge. This is why SourceForge is popular for real apps (FileZilla,
Pidgin, PortableApps.com, etc) and Github is popular for components (node.js,
jquery, rails, etc). The code zips available at other providers are of no use
to end users.

As full disclosure, I run PortableApps.com, one of SourceForge's largest
projects pushing quite a few TBs of downloads through their mirror network. We
make use of the SF-branded download buttons revenue share program but do not
make use of nor have any plans to use the "enhanced" installers. Everything
I've discussed here is already publicly available, I just thought it would be
handy to have in one place."

After that post, it was pointed out to me that Github has added in the ability
to host binaries, but I would wager they wouldn't take kindly to the kind of
bandwidth that the major SF projects like PortableApps.com push through. I've
also been in touch with Roberto who made the mentioned post on SourceForge
about some suggestions and options including doing an open source installer
that the end-user/sysadmin can verify before installing instead of it being a
downloader installer with the offer built in but not the app you want.

~~~
mcgwiz
Good write-up, thanks.

But this isn't a sustainable strategy. You're basically asserting
SourceForge's unique selling point/competitive advantage is its ability to
host files. You've got to be kidding.

GitHub has taken off like a rocket whose thrust show no signs of abating.
SourceForge is going down the drain with a passiveness that shows no sign of
abating--unless it is conceptually rethought, from the ground up. You know,
does something new and innovative to address project needs from a contemporary
point of view. Dice certainly doesn't seem to have an appetite for that kind
of risk, just an appetite for the last drops of life sucked out of a dying
carcass by throwing leeches on it.

~~~
Zelphyr
> GitHub has taken off like a rocket

I think this is in part because they charge. I like this model. Its simple.
You want to use GitHub for free then you have to make your code freely
available. You want to keep it proprietary then you have to pay for your
account.

Where this doesn't translate well with SourceForge is that it was designed
from the start to be of, by, and for Open Source projects. So the vast
majority of projects would be non-paying.

However, they _may_ be able to add some features that appeal to proprietary
projects who are willing to pay and use that revenue to offset any losses. It
would be hard work but ultimately I think it would be be better than the
appearance (if indeed it is just that) of distributing malware.

~~~
rictic
The vast majority of projects on github also do not pay. The two major
features you pay for on github are larger repositories, and private
repositories. The free offering is good enough for almost all open source
projects.

~~~
JohnTHaller
The big issue would be downloads when it comes to real apps, though. Github
discontinued binary downloads in December of 2012. But, they then added the
'Releases' functionality last month. I don't think they'd put up with the
large numbers of downloads (and the associated bandwidth) of big projects like
FileZilla, though.

~~~
pjhyett
If those projects are looking for a new home, we'd be happy to welcome them at
GitHub.

~~~
JohnTHaller
From a quick look, SourceForge pushed out about 19TB of FileZilla bandwidth in
the last 30 days in terms of binary downloads. I'm not sure any projects on
GitHub are pushing that kind of bandwidth for binary downloads yet. Or are
they?

In terms of PortableApps.com, I don't think we'd be a good fit for GitHub
since we're a project that's a conglomeration of apps made portable (for USB
and cloud use). I think we're around 90TB of bandwidth for downloads in the
last month for our open source apps via SourceForge (some of our open source
apps the publishers self-host like Inkscape and LibreOffice so we don't push
those through our SourceForge project).

~~~
hash9
You can get 100TB/month for under €100 on Leaseweb. Couldn't you raise this in
donations each month? I'm sure with your traffic it'd be possible.

~~~
JohnTHaller
I generally don't trust anything that sells 'unmetered' bandwidth as it nearly
always ends in disaster. Their metered accounts seem to be 10TB for $95 which
is about what we're paying for freeware downloads now (we can't host those on
SourceForge, of course).

------
RyanMcGreal
How far the gluster server has fallen. Here's the text of the article:

\----

How far the once mighty SourceForge has fallen…

[Editor's note: This post is the opinion of the author and not necessarily
that of the Gluster Community]

TLDR:

SourceForge, once a mighty force for the good of Open Source, has fallen far
from its previous lofty heights.

Dice, the new owners, bribe strongly encourage the top projects to use a new
(closed source only) installer that pushes spyware / adware / malware.

Developers using SourceForge should migrate away from it if they want to keep
their integrity. End users using projects hosted on SourceForge should
immediately find an alternative.

Full version:

When people download software from SourceForge, or any major repository of
Open Source software, they expect the software to be trustworthy. (baring
unintentional bugs)

They do not expect the software to be a source of “drive by installer” style
malware, spyware, adware, or any other unrelated/unintended software.

SourceForge’s new owners, Dice, have consciously and deliberately moved to a
model violating this trust.

With their recent changes, users downloading from SourceForge now receive a
special closed source installer which attempts to foist unrelated third party
software onto them.

For example, when a user clicks on this:

    
    
        http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla/files/FileZilla_Client/3.7.3/FileZilla_3.7.3_win32-setup.exe/download
    

They instead receive this:

    
    
        http://ak.pipoffers.apnpartners.com/static/partners/dynamic/SFFZ/SFInstaller_SFFZ_filezilla_8992693_.exe
    

This is a “drive-by installer”, designed to catch less technical users and the
unwary, to fill their computers with malware / junk ware / crime ware. As
abused by the notorious ask.com toolbar and others:

FileZilla_drive_by_downloader_smaller

It gets worse.

When SourceForge introduced this, it bribed encouraged the top projects to
participate by giving them a cut of the take. So these co-operating projects
are also knowingly selling their users down the river.

I’m not against monetisation at all, we all have lives and need to pay our
bills. But not through abusing user trust. Not through preying on the
unskilled or unwary.

To misquote Marge Simpson; “They not only crossed the line, they threw up on
it.”

If you’re a developer or contributor to a SourceForge project, please ask them
to move to a new project host (there are several). And cease all further
involvement until it’s complete. I’ve already done so with mine.

If you’re a user of a SourceForge project, please find and use an alternative
project instead.

We should all demonstrate our commitment to user safety and personal integrity
around this issue.

~~~
slacka
> This is a “drive-by installer”, designed to catch less technical users and
> the unwary, to fill their computers with malware / junk ware / crime ware...
> To misquote Marge Simpson; “They not only crossed the line, they threw up on
> it.”

And after a little research, it's clear that this article throws up on the
truth.

1) “drive-by installer” Drive-by installers don't require user to download and
intall, and are definatelly not OPT-IN like this one

2) "malware / junk ware / crime ware" \- He listed all of the wares, except
the one that it is, offer-installer is adware.

I'm no fan of opt-in adware, but plenty of quality apps depend on it. I've
been using daemon tools for almost 5 years now, and I've never had an issue
with it. For such a trivial tool with opensource alternatives, most people
won't pay, but developers needs to pay their bills and a little adware gets
the job done.

For click bait garbage articles like this I wish HN had someway to unvote.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
It's malware. No one wants adware and toolbars. Even if you ask politely and
they say yes, no one wants that, and no one should have it. A spade is a
spade.

~~~
joh6nn
as i said in response to another post, i hate adware and toolbars as much as
the next person, but semantics is important: malware is malicious software. a
toolbar that i did not intend to install, but is not malicious, is not
malware.

~~~
mortenjorck
I consider this sort of software harmful, but there is definitely an important
distinction between it and software that actively tries to steal your credit
card numbers, run a botnet, or send spam email. We need a word specifically
for software that makes an attempt to abide by the law and avoid any outright
malice, yet exists in a sort of moral gray area.

I propose "grayware."

~~~
bashinator
How about "junkware" or "crapware"?

~~~
jamornh
And I thought these were already the terms we use for this type of software...

------
peterwwillis
Okay. So SourceForge is pooping in the fishbowl at it's own party. Instead of
picking up and leaving, maybe we could just make a concerted effort to ask
Sourceforge to stop doing this? You don't have to demand everyone boycott a
useful service like this every time something you don't like happens.

~~~
threeseed
Are you serious ? Because you can't possibly think that asking SourceForge to
"please stop making money" in order to please a handful of users will actually
work.

------
bcraven
It's all gone download.com

\- new cockney rhyming slang anyone?

~~~
bencollier49
What does download.com rhyme with?

~~~
talktwomey
Pete Tong

~~~
toyg
which, for non-cockneys, is slang for "quite wrong".

~~~
rorykoehein
* just "wrong"

------
coffeeaddicted
Can you recommend alternatives that offer all their features? We use currently
for example sourcecontrol, forums, bugtrackers, a wiki, the image galleries
and their website hosting. I'm often unhappy with SF, but it's not quite that
easy finding that kind of service elsewhere.

~~~
nailer
github has source control, a bug tracker, and website hosting. Don't know
about forums and wikis.

~~~
zaphoyd
wikis yes. forums.. not really unless you abuse the bug tracker. Github+Google
Groups seems to be the complete package these days. BitBucket also provides
website/wiki/issue tracker/source control features.

~~~
coffeeaddicted
Yeah, it's probably a good solution for new projects. The problem with
existing projects is when you already have a quarter million posts in your
forum and don't want to lose them. Although maybe a mix of providers - keeping
forums on SF and moving the rest of the project might be a solution.

------
EvaK_de
At least SourceForge still offers a download option for the hosted projects,
unlike Google Code...

------
zeruch
As someone who was once part of the original "Ignition Team" at VA Linux for
SF.net, and who is still close friends with two of the original core SF team
(the first iteration of SF.net was done by just four people in <120 days IIRC)
we're all pretty much in sad agreement that it's just a husk of what it once
was.

It's certainly dead to me.

------
opello
I'm not sure if it's possible to get the released file out of SourceForge, but
my complaint would be (as a user that generally verifies cryptographic
checksums) that what I downloaded didn't match what the project advertised.

Looks like some remedy in the case of FileZilla is that they host their own
installer as well:

[http://download.filezilla-
project.org/FileZilla_3.7.3_win32-...](http://download.filezilla-
project.org/FileZilla_3.7.3_win32-setup.exe)

(Which matches the SF.net hosted FileZilla_3.7.3.sha512 list.)

Edit:

Looks like the original files can be gotten if you make your own direct link,
e.g.:

[http://softlayer-
dal.dl.sourceforge.net/project/filezilla/Fi...](http://softlayer-
dal.dl.sourceforge.net/project/filezilla/FileZilla_Client/3.7.3/FileZilla_3.7.3_win32-setup.exe)

------
logn
I was just thinking the other day how much I like sourceforge. Their site has
continued to improve. It's much more usable now than it used to be. I'm ok
with sf monetizing their site the best they can. They've long been an advocate
of open source and I appreciate an alternative to github. It's too bad the
shakeup with Dice and split off of ThinkGeek, but it makes sense. Keep in
mind, sf was the alternative to sites like Cnet and download.com which
were/are far worse. I'm thankful for what they've done for driving FOSS
adoption over the years, especially for authors on $0 budgets before the era
of abundant cloud computing on the cheap, which we realize now had significant
hidden costs, including human rights.

------
joshuahedlund
So SourceForge downloads are becoming as bad as Cnet? Even the once-reputable
members of the download hosting industry seem to be heading towards a rather
unfortunate Nash equilibrium... Hopefully Github can sustain their model
without it.

~~~
bdcravens
Github has plenty of customers who pay for private repos. They're profitable
and have had some serious investment dollars injected.

------
pearjuice
The decline started years ago with the "Wait five seconds and we will redirect
you to the real download page" filled with fake download buttons describing
"Tired of waiting? DOWNLOAD" et cetera. They never improved their core product
(repositories are still hell to navigate through) and only added interface
elements and tweaked the UI to get you to.click on ads. A shame, because
before that Sourceforge was the go-to place to download homebrew, free
alternatives to proprietary software.

Github is great, but as it looks right now they fail to pull in those big
legacy software packages. Their main audience seems to be web dev.

------
lbenes
This article is full of hyperbole and exaggerations. I downloaded the latest
filezilla with the offer-installer "malware" and scanned it with Avira free
antivirus, and MS Security Essentials. Both of them reported no problem.

I then was able to install filezilla without the offer-installer just by not
clicking on the checkmark. After the installation, my VM ran normally, no pop-
ups, no changed homepage in firefox or IE.

People that write this drivel make the open source community look like a bunch
of nutjob, hippy zealots with no grasp of reality. Ads pay the bills and sadly
some open source developers have mouths to feed.

~~~
UncleBubba
The problem with these install "wrappers" is that they run with elevated
privileges and you do not know what they're doing.

This wrapper presents the same problems as OpenCandy. Can you get the source
to the installer? No. Can you guarantee the wrapper only does what they say
it's doing. No. Do you have a fiduciary or contractual relationship with the
publisher upon which you can rely if their software causes you harm? Probably
not.

Avira Free and MS Essentials are certainly not the be-all, end-all to code
verification, so don't feel too secure after using them, either.

------
drderidder
There's a lot of good software on SourceForge still. How long before SF starts
holding it ransom? Sounds like a good time to fork your favourite SF-hosted
code to another service as a backup.

------
mratzloff
> _I’m not against monetisation at all, we all have lives and need to pay our
> bills._

OK, I'm game. How should SourceForge monetize?

Just about everyone here is running ad blocking software, not that display ads
pay much anymore. Not that anyone will tolerate seeing an ad for the free
software they're downloading.

Should SourceForge charge a monthly fee to projects? To users? Perhaps
SourceForge should arrange licensing deals to make white label SourceForge
clones? Maybe they should just start doing consulting on the side?

~~~
derekp7
Don't they already have paid commercial hosting (along with a paid self-hosted
version of their site)? I thought it was free only for software meeting one of
their approved free licenses. Otherwise you have to pay.

~~~
mratzloff
Most of their projects are free licenses.

------
simula67
The web installer was initially not detecting the proxy at my workplace.
Hopefully popular projects like Filezilla will move their download binaries
off Sourceforge.

------
Thiz
SourceForge is to github

what myspace is to facebook

what gm is to tesla

and what slashdot is to digg, now to reddit

and so on

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voltagex_
I also posted this some time ago.

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jms703
wait. sourceforge is still around? i doubt those that use it read hacker news.

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af3
Hey guys, do you know an alternative service that provides mailing lists (no
Ggle groups please)?

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reidrac
I don't know why you don't want to use Google Groups, but depending on your
reasons you may like [http://librelist.com/](http://librelist.com/)

There's also Yahoo! Groups.

