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Comment by xyrouter | Hacker News Reader

Websense blacklisted Sourceforge after the 2013 DevShare debacle. It has remained blacklisted since. It is blacklisted in many other web application firewalls and content gateways too. Sourceforge is inaccessible from many corporate networks due to this. It will remain inaccessible for many more years to come.

It's unfortunate how Sourceforge, once a leader in the open source community, lost the trust and reputation it built over 14 years in a matter of a few weeks. It may take another 14 years to regain this lost trust and even that may not be enough.

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It's worth pointing out that SourceForge as we knew it back then ceased to exist quite some time ago. SourceForge was sold to DHI Group, Inc. (DICE's parent company) in 2012 and many of the staff were let go as part of the sale. DevShare came into play in 2014 and was originally billed as a way to help open source developers who wanted to sign up earn an income from their open source work. But then it wound up using dark patterns and then it was morphed into something more and started to be added to projects that didn't want it done (in violation of some trademarks and the like). This destroyed the good will that still existed around the brand even though most of the folks who made SourceForge SourceForge were long gone.

SourceForge was then sold again in 2016 to BIZX, LLC who killed the DevShare program and started scanning all downloads for malware and other baddies.

Thanks. Yep we killed the bundled adware and fake download buttons on DAY ONE. Nice to hear that at least some people understand that.

You're obviously very frustrated by how people see the service, but you can't blame them.

The GIMP incident made pretty big news, and for many people, the name "SourceForge" will stay equivalent to a malware-injecting host. Anyone who decided to keep the name should have anticipated that.

I'm not frustrated, but these threads show up on HN almost weekly now, with armchair quarterbacks who really are not current on the state of open source opining ill informed opinions. They even know we are new owners who immediately killed all the bad stuff, and still blame us. I cared about SourceForge, so I bought it and removed DevShare, and still get the blame. People know that we having nothing to do with the old owners, but recreational online outrage is fun, so they continue to blame us for saving it. Cognitive dissonance is en vogue right now. I guess if someone's lonely Sunday night is made better by shitting on the people who did everything in their power to save SourceForge, then go for it. I just think people's time can be used better.

Maybe change your name from source forge to something else.

You can rehabilitate the brand, but that will probably take a lot more money than just changing the name.

Edited to add:

On the front page I also see "Business VOIP" and "Cloud Storage" and "Internet speed test". Maybe you want to remove those links and focus on software development.

How fortunate for Apple that they weren't forever condemned in the same manner for how they screwed over Lisa buyers.

>It may take another 14 years to regain this lost trust and even that may not be enough.

That's absolutely absurd given how often the biggest names in 'tech' make headlines with one egregious act or another, on a seemingly weekly basis, and continue to march on. As if the tech community can sit atop some moral high ground, thumbing its nose at SourceForge. But nah, let's just keep crapping on a company no longer under the same ownership and no longer committing these acts and hasn't for some time.

> let's just keep crapping on a company no longer under the same ownership

I have no intention of crapping on SourceForge. I am merely making an observation. I think many would agree that users have lost trust in Sourceforge regardless of the history or current state of ownership.

In fact, I used to appreciate loganabbott's (the new president of Sourceforge) attempt to amend SourceForge until today when I see the same person posting insinuating and insulting comments towards potential users.

I have no intention of crapping on SourceForge because SourceForge is largely irrelevant to me. I host my projects on GitHub these days. If GitHub becomes untenable for any reason, I might move to Gitea. But I am definitely not coming back to Sourceforge after seeing these juvenile comments coming off from the president of Sourceforge in this thread. Don't know about others but he has definitely managed to piss me off as a user.

Regarding why Sourceforge gets the kind of flak other companies don't, I have commented about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17281519 (again this is merely a conversation, not a passing of judgement).

Sorry if my comments rubbed you the wrong way, but it's a bit frustrating when these threads pop up weekly, and people feel like it's open license to attack me and my company. We really are doing our best to make SourceForge a trusted destination, but still get the flack as if we were the previous ownership.

it might be worth considering that "the biggest names in 'tech'" are also general consumer-facing, which benefits from public ignorance and apathy.

sourceforge is a more niche product.

This diatribe just tells me Websense and you are not informed on the current state of the open source community. We bought SourceForge in 2016 specifically because we hated what happened with DevShare and killed it on day one. You can continue hating us simply because of the previous owners, but you can probably find better stuff to do with your time. Nobody uses WebSense anymore anyway except for high schools trying to stop students from watching porn during art history class.

You are insinuating both Websense and me that we are not informed about the current state of Sourceforge. Insinuating your potential users like this is in poor taste considering you are the president of Sourceforge.

I am very much aware and I followed the HN thread [1] when you acquired Sourceforge and when you commented extensively trying to reassure us that you will turn Sourceforge around. Sure you have made efforts but I think it is quite clear that the good measures you took came a little too late.

Frankly, your comments in that acquisition thread [1] were more balanced and matured. The comments you are posting in this thread are coming off as immature.

You also seem to be misinformed about Websense. Websense and other web application firewalls and content gateways are very much in use in many corporate networks including mine. Looks like I am not the only one with this issue.[2]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11092219

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14388551

> Nobody uses WebSense anymore

anecdotal but i work at a megacorp with a 6-figure headcount, and i've seen a websense message or two.

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