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back to article Slashdot, SourceForge slurped by travel publisher

Slashdot and SourceForge have been offloaded by owner DHI media, which has found them a new home at a company called BizX. The two sites were put on the chopping board in July 2015 when DHI, best known as operator of jobs board Dice, decided it stick to its knitting. Up then, went the sign: “For Sale, one Linux-centric news …

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  1. Shadow Systems

    It's popcorn time again.

    Slashdot's commenters are what made it into the powerhouse that got it snapped up by Dice, then Dice shat all over it under the guise of making it better. The vitriol those commenters foisted upon it makes what ElReg experienced over it's ill-begotten design cockup look like a butterfly's fart in a planetary-killing explosion.

    Now it's happened again with Dice selling it off to another company? Cue the flame wars, #fuckbeta hashtag protests, headline downvoting/meta moderating into oblivion, "stories" being posted repeatedly under different headlines in a piss poor attempt to make it appear that the news aggregator actually had anyone reporting anything, disguising obvious advertising as stories in the vain hopes the commenters wouldn't notice the dip shit maneuver, ad nauseum.

    So break out the popcorn, drinks, & comfy chairs, it's Slashdot Wars all over again!

    *Sigh*

    You'd think a company that lives or dies by the submissions of it's audience NOT to fuck over said audience, but obviously that's too much to hope for.

    *Ahem*

    18 0 Reply
  2. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
    Boffin

    There is another...

    Soylent News is where most of the refugees went last time: https://soylentnews.org/

    11 0 Reply
  3. neozeed

    Sourceforge is the best, bar none

    They did away with the mallard thing years ago. They host your projects and file dumps for free. They have been around a LOT longer than the other flash in the pans, that are far too overvalued.

    Oldest is best.

    So it's a travel site. I'm sure it'll be direct advertising. Whoopee. For the value the site provides that is fine, unlike github and it's insane venture funding and unrealistic value. Once this tech bubble pops, gitlab will be gone, and sourceforge will creak on.

    0 14 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sourceforge is the best, bar none

      Apart from the whole bundling malware thing right?

      20 0 Reply
    2. Holleritho
      Reply Icon

      Re: Sourceforge is the best, bar none

      SourceForge used to be the best. I remember it fondly from about 2002. And then the darkness entered its soul and you can't trust a think that comes from it. I remember getting something studded with malware like a ham with cloves and thought WTF, then tried again a few months later and realised everything was like this. So, with a tear of nostalgia for what once had been, I walked away.

      14 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sourceforge is the best, bar none

        Sourceforge always sucked; it was merely the first and only service to host opensource version control, until better ones came along.

        Now you can host git+ssh on any old VPS. As for support tools (bug tracking, mailing lists, etc), good luck. Don't get too attached because you'll be switching every year or so. And don't expect opensource to magically fill the gaps. It's extremely difficult to develop & maintain community websites. I, for one, have better things to do.

        2 3 Reply
      2. Shadow Systems
        Reply Icon

        Re: Sourceforge is the best, bar none

        I decided to give it one last chance, downloaded a copy of FileZilla (Windows FTP client), and ran the AntiVirus scanner across it once it finished getting to me. It registered as having no fewer than *four* different virii inside & my AntiVirus promptly quarrentined it.

        Ok, maybe it was just the copy stored on that particular server, so let's try another mirror. After spending far too long downloading copy after mirrored copy, only to have each one get quarrentined due to virii, I gave it up as a lost cause.

        Go directly to the FileZilla site, direct download, and no virii. I don't know if the infections via SF were intentional, accidental, or random stupidity, but I'm sure as hell not going back there any time soon.

        I wish I could say I'm surprised at how far SF has fallen but after what they've done/been doing/are doing/are likely to do in the future, I merely shake my head in disgust & walk away.

        They used to be a great resource for software, now they're just a virii spaffing, trojan spewing, scumware shitting hazardous waste dump of the toxic sludge that shouldn't be allowed anywhere near your computer.

        Maybe I'll consider removing their brand new entry from my HOSTS file sometime & giving them another try, but don't hold your breath.

        10 0 Reply
        1. Robert Grant
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          Re: Sourceforge is the best, bar none

          Plural of virus

          7 0 Reply
          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Sourceforge is the best, bar none

            Interesting. I'm guilty that way as well. At least I'm okay with forum/fora.

            0 0 Reply
            1. Anonymous Coward
              Reply Icon
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Sourceforge is the best, bar none

              Viruses, wow. Yesterday I noticed that UBlock Origin blocks *.sourceforge.net as a "Badware site". Ouch.

              4 0 Reply
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Changing the Physics of Business

    or changing the business of physics. Or whatevering whatever of whatever.

    3 0 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Name change needed...

    ForcedScourge?

    Also who still reads slashdot? Just like snake pliskin I thought it was dead.

    3 0 Reply
    1. PhilBuk
      Reply Icon

      Re: Name change needed...

      Just logged in to see if it was any better than when I last used it - at the first showing of beta. The bastards seem to have removed any way of configuring the view of the site - I used to have a really nice pre-2000 setup with the max amount of text info per page and no web shit - everybody gets the same garbage web 2.0 crap now.

      Used to be my home page. R.I.P.

      Phil.

      4 0 Reply
  6. Justin Clift
    Boffin

    There are definitely Community Positive ways this could go

    ... but only if the new owners are open to doing things differently → providing equal or greater value to their hosted projects than GitHub, and also (actually) being trustworthy for the users of their hosted projects. None of this is rocket science, it just requires the willingness to get it done and keep doing it.

    While I hope good things happen... it's way too early to pick which way the new owners will take it. ;)

    2 0 Reply
    1. Justin Clift
      Reply Icon

      Re: There are definitely Community Positive ways this could go

      The new owners have terminated the DevShare program:

      https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-acquisition-and-future-plans/

      That's a good start.

      Hoping they do this all properly, and SourceForge becomes a positive thing again.

      0 0 Reply
  7. steve1995

    Recover will take at least 10 years from now

    It's not impossible for SourceForge to recover but as I said, it will take them 10 years and as someone else said before - the plan is to surpass GitHub and other competitors. I would say they need a fresh start so the best plan would be to replace the existing team. Bring new people that are willing to create something beautiful and more important - useful for developers. Otherwise, it will be hard for them to undo the damage made by Dice. I doubt that the new owner has any real interest. To give an example, there are already several days and the DevShare program didn't stopped as they promised (as I am posting this, Filezilla is still spreading unwanted bundles - as well as others). I can also see 10 ads/page and a slow network. Keep doing this and you will fail miserably. In the meatime, I will get my apps from FossHub and CodePlex, the only two sources that I trust. Well, yes, CodePlex belongs to Microsoft but as long as they don't become like SourceForge I will trust them.

    2 0 Reply

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