jeremy

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Registered: Jun 2000 Distribution: Debian, Red Hat, Slackware, Fedora, Ubuntu Posts: 13,254

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Can SourceForge regain credibility with Linux users and developers?

Quote: It has been six months since the company formerly known as Dice (DHI Group) sold off Slashdot Mediathe business unit that runs Slashdot and SourceForgeto BIZX, LLC, a San Diego-based digital media company. Since then, the new management has been moving to erase some of the mistakes made under the previous regimemistakes that led to the site becoming a bit of a pariah among open source and free software developers.



In an e-mail to Ars, Logan Abbottthe new president of Slashdot and SourceForgesaid, "SourceForge was in the media a lot last year due to several transgressions, which we have addressed since the acquisition. Unfortunately, the media has thus far elected not to cover the improvements (probably because bad press is more popular)." In the conversation that followed, Abbott emphasized the transformation underway at SourceForge.



Abbott has an uphill climb, to be sure. The shifting nature of the software development world has made repositories such as GitHub a go-to for open source projects of all sorts, while the focus on application downloads has shifted heavily toward the mobile world. But Abbott said he believes SourceForge is still "a great distribution channel," and that developers will come back to host with the repository "when end users see us as a trusted destination once again."



Abbott attempted to start the process of getting people to trust SourceForge again last week with a sort-of Ask Me Anything session on Reddit's Sysadmin subreddit. His openness was well-received. But he and Slashdot Media may have a bit more work to do before they can shake off the damage done during DHI's tenure.



...



This all adds up to a significant reversal of approach from where SourceForge was this time last year. It may take more to get developers to reconsider distributing their projects' compiled code through the repository. But even with the hit SourceForge has taken reputation-wise, the site is "profitable now," Abbott said. That may say as much about search engine optimization and the site's advertising density as it does about the loyalty of die-hard SourceForge users, who are still downloading in droves. More at Ars...



Do any LQ members still use SorceForge?



--jeremy Do any LQ members still use SorceForge?--jeremy