Yes that is correct. It syncs (copies) binaries from GH to SF, doesn't touch code.

So you're stealing binaries from GH and calling it your own? Sort of like what every download site already does. "Every day, SourceForge sees over a million visitors and serves 4.5 million software downloads." So everyday a user on average downloads 4.5 software packages? I highly doubt your numbers. Personally, I've downloaded perhaps 5 within the last year and I am an rabid consumer of OSS. I am not impressed with your performance.

The binaries in question aren't GH's or SF's, they're the project's, and since this synching is under the project's control, I don't see the problem.

Out of curiosity, what is the benefit of hosting binaries on SF over GH releases?

We get over a million users per day looking to download OSS. If you have binaries on SF you can reach these people through our very robust discovery tools and strength of our search results in Google. We also give project admins detailed download statistics.

Are there any plans to push this code back upstream to Apache? My understanding is SF.net abandoned the legacy alexandria (the PHP code from VA Linux) source code, built the current version, and then sent to the Apache Foundation, but I'm not clear if this is a fork, or what sf.net's relation is with it's upstream.

Also, since I'm on the topic, any chance slashdot will go back to an open source code model?

I'm sorry to be the party pooper here, but it looks like the relevance war to Github was lost ~7 years ago:

https://trends.google.ca/trends/explore?date=all&q=github,so...

GitHub is much larger by traffic, but that doesn't mean we are going to abandon the million users we get every day and the 430,000 projects hosted at SourceForge. It's not a zero sum game. Some people like using GitHub's suite of tools, while also taking advantage of SourceForge mailing lists, project website hosting, detailed download statistics, and distribution/discovery capability. Our GitHub Sync Tool lets project owners use both with ease.

Keep competing! Alternatives are good!

I agree. After Github recently locked my private repos and demanded payment to unlock them, with no option to simply make them public instead, I'm 10,000% supportive of getting new (or, in this case, refreshed) competitors in that space, whether I plan to use them or not.

Settings -> Danger Zone -> Make Repo Public

Just did it, it works just fine.

How did you create a free private repo to begin with?

Expiration of a student license, maybe?