The story between VLC and Sourceforge | Hacker News Reader

The story between VLC and Sourceforge

blog.l0cal.com

92 pointsmafuyu23 comments

Interesting is that Sourceforge doesn't even host the downloads themself, but just links to mirrors like HEANET. The mirrors should refuse to add any new binaries from Sourceforge and we need a community driven website that coordinates open source download binary mirrors (based on what SF uses at the moment), and Archive.org/ArchiveTeam/etc should backup all SVN/CVS/etc repositories on Sorceforge, and Google then should remove them from their index or flag them as adware/scam. But there is a risk that lot's of valuable source code of abandoned projects get lost that is still very valuable. So a source code repo backup is important.

It's sad what has turned out of the former great Slashdot and Sourceforge websites.

[Edit: fixed typo]

Which is why, for VLC, we contacted ourselves all the mirrors (+ quite a few new ones), and built our own new mirroring system, that is faster (and more reliable) than the SF one.

The mirrors had no problem with that, since we were already the biggest bandwidth consumer, through SF.

Why do the mirrors offer this bandwidth? Well, it depends. Some are universities, some need bandwidth up/down balance (because of interconnections contracts), some are just nice, and some get paid to do it.

Paid by who?

Love your typo. =) I suppose you wanted to write abandoned projects, but abdomen projects has a nice ring to it.

:) (mobile device auto correction)

> and Archive.org/ArchiveTeam/etc should backup all SVN/CVS/etc repositories on Sorceforge

ArchiveTeam is in the process of putting SF (~20TB) into cold storage.

To me P2P is the obvious answer to the (especially free) software distribution problem. Sign the binaries, and let the users help you. You can even run Opentracker [1] on a cheap server for more independence. Ubuntu is doing this.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opentracker

P2P is a very difficult option for any non-geek who wants to install ("just do it") the software.

Opera browser used to have transparent BitTorrent built in to its 4MB binary (along with IRC, Newsgroups, email...). I miss the old, innovative Opera. Oh well, maybe we will learn one day when someone like Microsoft/Google shoves some kind of proprietary semi-peer-to-peer protocol in to IE/Chrome and runs all the tracking out of their respective cloud.

"very difficult"? Has the definition of "non-geek" changed in the last decade?

I know many people who had absolutely no trouble downloading various things - including software - from all the P2P networks that flourished around 10 years ago. Not only torrents, but eMule, Kazaa, Limewire, etc.

They also happened to easily infect themselves with various malware by doing that, but I'd consider it more evidence of how "non-geek" they were.

(But all in all, despite the risks, I definitely prefer and miss that era of open filesharing compared to the closed proprietary walled gardens that have replaced it.)

For me personally the best solution is to run an open source operating system like GNU/Linux or *BSD, and use that operating system's package manager or else build from source.

But I'm aware that doesn't work for everyone, since most people (especially Joe User) are using either Windows or Mac OS. For Windows, Ninite covers a decent range of basic freeware and open source software, and Chocolatey covers a lot more but is less user-friendly. For Macs (and I shouldn't have to tell anyone here about this) there is the excellent Homebrew project.

Back to the Windows arena, maybe Microsoft's new package management system will be a boon for power users and those seeking good freeware for their computer without having to worry about tagalong malware.

Reminds me of when VersionTracker was bought by Cnet, shut down and redirected to their scam site.

I guess one of the problems with software that doesn't cost any money is that it's hard to build a business around giving it away. It sounds obvious in retrospect...

From the linked [0] article, SourceForge was a perfectly viable bussiness before this, if it will continue to be is another matter

"First of all, problems with SourceForge are older than some people might expect. At some point in mid-2000s, SourceForge stopped evolving as fast as it used to and focused on advertising-based revenue. This allowed them to go from $6mln in 2006 to $23mln revenue in 2009. But it also alienated free software developers due to poorer service quality. Various projects started moving away."

[0]http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/anatomy-of-sourcefo...

If you need projects to attract downloaders, your source of income is advertising to downloaders, and advertising to downloaders drives away projects, then your business isn't perfectly viable, even if you make more money for a time.

Maybe in this one, specific case. But not even really here. There are other ways they could do well.

Just look at redhat (the company) for instance - You can absolutely build a business on giving away software and supporting it.

RedHat's business is built around support, not around giving software away. Apple gives iTunes away, but it isn't their core business. GitHub charges for private repositories, etc.

Sourceforge was great until Dice.com bought them. Things seem to have gone downhill faster once https://www.linkedin.com/in/gkuchhal took over.

Can't wait for Windows 10 and it's manager to make all these crapsites obsolete.

Chocolatey downloads Sourceforge binaries too: https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=sourceforge

And Microsoft won't curate nor provide a mirror for popular open source binary downloads, right?

Sourceforge basically acts as a web interface for a dozens of open source gratis mirrors. The mirrors allow Sourceforge to upload files, something that should be revoked and transferred to a free software open source community driven website.

> And Microsoft won't curate nor provide a mirror for popular open source binary downloads, right?

Developers will be able to upload regular desktop applications to the Windows 10 app store once they have converted them into the AppX format. I don't see why open source Windows apps couldn't be hosted there.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9648616

Please include the content of a link and why you think it's relevant.

In this case, I guess you want to point out a repost. But the other one got 6 points and 0 comments, so no other discussion with interesting comments to link to.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com