GIMP Windows Installers move from Sourceforge to ftp.gimp.org

http://www.gimp.org/?

by uladzislau • 13 years ago

169 75 13 years ago

mathrawka2• 13 years ago

The link in the article sums up the "what happened to Sourceforge" pretty well: http://www.gluster.org/2013/08/how-far-the-once-mighty-sourc...

The OSS project I maintained for several years was always in the top 10 downloaded lists on Sourceforge, but I got frustrated with how things were going and eventually moved the code to Github and hosted a simple website on my own.

Honestly, I can't think of a reason why an OSS project would choose Sourceforge in this day and age.

conductor2• 13 years ago

Their mirrors system is working very well. It's very easy to distribute big files (like ISO images) through Sourceforge's mirrors. No wonder that Adobe's leaked users database was (or still is) being distributed using Sourceforge mirrors.

leeoniya• 13 years ago

i cant imagine that it's better than torrent

idupree2• 13 years ago

It's hard to download from Sourceforge using HTTPS. (Or even to use HTTPS to get the SHA hash of a download.) Can you tell me how to do it, so I can download from Sourceforge without risk of a man-in-the-middle modifying the download to, say, contain malicious code?

Theodores• 13 years ago

I go to SourceForge for civiCRM and it works pretty well. However I am downloading something to install on a linux box where there is no .exe installer.

I have heard that GitHub has been DDOSed a few times in recent times. Therefore, for me, it is swings and roundabouts.

mathrawka2• 13 years ago

Sourceforge used to get DDOSed as well. You can probably dig up some older articles on Google.

But I am not sure about these days. Perhaps that is a sign of losing relevancy...

smoyer• 13 years ago

I used to love SourceForge so it's a bit painful to admit that it's no longer important enough to waste the bots needed for a DDOS on it. The reality seems to be that they're destroying themselves.

JohnTHaller13• 13 years ago

That article gets a lot of things very wrong as I pointed out when it was posted on HN last time (you'll see my comment at the top): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6262347

Github is an option for some folks but not for us. We need solid file hosting with lots of bandwidth (pushing well over 50TB a month at SF) that will be sticking around next month and next year. In my comment linked above, I mention that Github ditched binary downloads (they did last year). In the ensuing discussion, it was pointed out that Github added the feature back in this year as 'Releases'. It remains to be seen if the feature will stick around, though, and I wouldn't put my all my eggs in that basket. When Github discontinued binary downloads last year, users were offered no alternative. So, it's not inconceivable that Github would pull the binary hosting feature again in the future as they stabilize their product offerings. SourceForge has been serving our binaries for 7 years now.

jeswin2• 13 years ago

You should then consider a better host. SourceForge is clearly a scamware host now; maybe ever since Dice.com took over. And to be honest, just seeing a file hosted on SourceForge casts doubts on the quality of the app.

- Most users just click OK for installers, it is like the EULA

- I am yet to see a toolbar that does anything useful to anybody; other than make their system slower and buggy. I hold a very low opinion of people (like Ask.com) who bundle things with the clear knowledge that most people are unknowingly installing their app/toolbar. Much worse than spammers.

With your extensive experience with user behavior, it is interesting that you see this differently.

yuhong3• 13 years ago

OT, but I wonder if SourceForge would create an Enterprise Edition again.

aradriel• 13 years ago

I dont know what kind of contract SF made out with his mirror providers but i have doubts that they can keep all of them under these circumstances. SF ability to push such amounts off bins comes from support from providers and edu facilities.

ash2• 13 years ago

There's also Bintray. I think they've been around for about a year now:

https://bintray.com/

tobyjsullivan• 13 years ago

The state of affairs really is unfortunate. I think we can all attest to SourceForge having played a wonderful roll in the open software industry at one point. But how can anybody, no matter how loyal, support what it has become?

Define your company values early.

jevinskie• 13 years ago

This is also a problem with FileZilla. Sourceforge pushing adware? I never thought I would see the day - totally absurd!

https://forum.filezilla-project.org/viewtopic.php?t=30240

copx• 13 years ago

Some people here seem to be seriously confused by anti-SF FUD.

These ad-ware loaded installers are not the default. You have to explicitly opt-in. It provides SF and projects hosted there (a kinda shady) optional way to make money.

The FileZilla installer contains ad-ware because the FileZilla developers chose to add it. It is their attempt to make money. I use SF too but none of my projects come with ad-ware installers.

One should point out that bundling ad-ware is a common way developers of free (as in beer) software make money in the Windows world.. so SF has not cooked up some nefarious new scheme here.

shadowmint• 13 years ago

There, fixed that typo for you:

    One should point out that bundling ad-ware is a common 
    way *morally bankrupt money grabbing* developers of 
    free (as in beer) software ...

bad_user4• 13 years ago

And that's why companies like Apple or Google or Amazon or Microsoft, feel morally justified to lock-in users inside of their curated app stores. It's because of Windows and its ecosystem filled with all the scum this industry has to offer.

People pay for valuable software. If people don't want to pay for your software, then it may mean that your software isn't worth paying for. And I can agree with ads loaded inside that software. In my eyes ads are a legitimate way of monetizing software.

But pushing extra adware junk down on users' throats, especially plugins for other pieces of software, like browsers? That's taking it a step way too far. And this also hurts developers that are monetizing their apps by serving tasteful ads. Not to mention that it hurts the browser makers - for example my wife wants Chrome, not Firefox, because she doesn't have the expertise to keep her Firefox clean and because Firefox is more open, more extensible, I've never seen a Firefox instance on Windows that's not overloaded with third-party junk.

But hey, lets poison the pool for everybody, right? Thanks guys for killing an otherwise viable business model, not to mention the only major browser built by a non-profit.

ithinkso• 13 years ago

It is unbelievable what SourceForge, once amazing, became of.

mburns• 13 years ago

Is 'unbelievable' even remotely the right word?

jackhammons• 13 years ago

It's a shame that a company which spearheaded free availability to open source code has sunken to the point of encouraging proprietary installers and adware laden applications.

mschuster91• 13 years ago

If GitHub were to clone some of SFnet's features (full-featured web hosting, forum), I bet my behind on a mass SFnet exodus.

Nux• 13 years ago

All good things come to an end.

eliteraspberrie• 13 years ago

Amazon Route 53 has a feature called Latency Based Routing, which you can use to distribute traffic to your own mirrors. With AWS, Rackspace and other similar cheap hosting, I see no reason for a SourceForge.

By the way, SourceForge, Freecode (aka Freshmeat) and Slashdot were all acquired by Dice.com in September 2012.

chrismorgan3• 13 years ago

The GIMP uses an awful lot of bandwidth monthly, well into the terabytes monthly, I believe. PortableApps.com is another project and one which I know much more about due to my involvement; it goes through over 50TB per month and with something like S3 that is already well over $5,000 per month at a minimum. No reason for SourceForge?

tedunangst• 13 years ago

What are people downloading? At 20MB per download, that's more than 2.5 million downloads per month.

Eiwatah4• 13 years ago

$ 5000 seems way too much.

50 TB of traffic would cost something like $ 200 (if all downloads were from the US or Europe) to $ 450 (if all of were from South America) according to this page: https://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/?navclick=true#pricing

That's still a lot of money, of course.

olau• 13 years ago

With hetzner.de, you get 20 TB/per month included with a dedicated server and then 2 EUR/TB after that http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produkte_rootserver/ex40

So not free, but not as expensive as S3 and friends.

chj• 13 years ago

Downloading on Sourceforge hasn't been a pleasant experience for a long time, and we have to live with that because it's free. But now an installer? I have to say it's crazy.

chrismorgan3• 13 years ago

Again—that is opt-in only on the part of project maintainers. It is not mandatory.

hrjet• 13 years ago

SF didn't have a good sustenance plan. If they had a way to charge users directly (instead of bombarding them with ads), they could have continued to provide good service to open-source projects.

As a user, it is a good idea to research the sustenance plan of a service before using it.

jzzskijj• 13 years ago

Just realized my Windows laptop is still at Gimp 2.6 and while at www.gimp.org let's take this as an opportunity to update to 2.8 series:

Not Found

The requested URL /pub/gimp/v2.8/windows/gimp-2.8.8-setup.exe was not found on this server.

Bad timing for me apparently.

teekert• 13 years ago

But where are the torrents? The ftp-site seems horribly congested.

mng2• 13 years ago

It looks like there are several torrents out there, but an 'official' one would be nice to have.

ash2• 13 years ago

Bintray is a another service that hosts binaries for open source projects. Seems nice:

https://bintray.com/

GIMP Windows Installers move from Sourceforge to ftp.gimp.org

Related Stories