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Re:Tmux 2.0 released by bluehex on Thursday May 07, 2015 @11:10AM (#9505590)
It makes me sad to see a respectable piece of open source software hosted on this site with its intrusive advertising practices such as ads with fake "install" buttons on the download page.

What is the advantage of using Sourceforge these days when github and bitbucket are free for open source?

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by perlgeek on Thursday May 07, 2015 @03:13PM (#9507524)
Even before github was around, sourceforge was a PITA. I remember clicking through the web UI for more than half an hour before finding the place where you could configure the project website/homepage.

Also, trying to delete an abandoned project, which had a mailing list, but it wouldn't let me delete the mailing list, because there was still an admin in there (me!), and I couldn't leave the mailing list, because then it would have been without admin. D'uh. And you couldn't delete a project with an active mailing list...

Then a few years later, after I didn't use SF much anymore, I tried to comment on the bug in the bug tracker, and didn't find any option to do that, even as a logged-in user.

I used google code as soon as it became available, because it worked, and had a much cleaner admin interface. Not to mention user interface.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by xienze on Thursday May 07, 2015 @01:00PM (#9506530)
> What is the advantage of using Sourceforge these days when github and bitbucket are free for open source?

I imagine the author figures that moving is a pain.

Don't forget, Sourceforge was the Github of yesteryear. I imagine in 10 years we may very well be asking the same of some old project hosted on Github.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by StefanKarpinski on Thursday May 07, 2015 @01:16PM (#9506662)
Sourceforge's downfall was not finding a better business model than advertising – which has devolved into the worst kind of spammy ads. GitHub, on the other hand, has a solid business model that doesn't involve advertising. In fact, putting ads on the site would be suicide.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by xienze on Thursday May 07, 2015 @01:18PM (#9506681)
Sure, but you can't say with certainty that Github's fortunes won't change X years down the line is my point.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by thramp on Thursday May 07, 2015 @03:00PM (#9507436)
That’s true, but the risks are significantly diminished. As they say, your business model is your destiny, and if have a good business model...
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by imroot on Thursday May 07, 2015 @03:38PM (#9507708)
Sourceforge tried to find a better business model -- sourceforge enterprise edition -- but then spun it off and then sold it to a different company (CollabNet) in 2007...then over the next 3-5 years, laid off almost everyone behind sourceforge.net/OSDN. The only thing left of the company now is thinkgeek.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by vog on Thursday May 07, 2015 @04:05PM (#9507893)
> Don't forget, Sourceforge was the Github of yesteryear.

Not really.

At that time, there were almost no alternatives. Sourceforge was slow and bloated, even without ads. Nobody wanted to use it, but at least it was free (in the sense of free beer).

And it took them ages to support SVN in addition to CVS. When they finally supported it, many project were already thinking about switching from SVN to a distributed VCS.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by xienze on Thursday May 07, 2015 @04:33PM (#9508093)
> Not really.

How do you figure? It was "the way" to share your OSS project in its time. It wasn't great, but it was the best we had.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by vog on Thursday May 07, 2015 @05:00PM (#9508273)
> It was "the way" to share your OSS project in its time

Nobody questions that.

But that doesn't quality for "the GitHub of that time", because most people like to use GitHub, so the analogy is incomplete in some essential aspects.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by FireBeyond on Thursday May 07, 2015 @06:43PM (#9508875)
Eh, that's pretty nebulous. There's a whole lot not to like about GitHub, too. Vaguely hand wavy "oh that doesn't count cuz most people like GitHub" isn't really much proof of anything.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by emj on Friday May 08, 2015 @03:35AM (#9510415)
If you had the resources to host your own tracker/repository/wiki/mailinglist instead of using Sourceforge you did that. Github is so good it's actually hard to convince people it would be a good idea to have server for those things, even if money and time isn't the issue.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by vog on Friday May 08, 2015 @07:06AM (#9510913)
Not sure what you mean by "proof". Just take it as an anecdote of a contemporary witness. From your previous comments it seems that you didn't have to suffer through that time. Lucky you!
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by FireBeyond on Friday May 08, 2015 @01:46PM (#9513089)
Hah, not quite. I've been in IT since 1995, suffered a layoff in the first dotcom crash. Don't get me wrong, Sourceforge has never been something I liked, but that didn't mean I agreed with the premise.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by qrmn on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:26PM (#9507164)
I'm also struggling to see any advantages to still using Sourceforge in 2015.

Firstly, they're well-known by now to be complicit in sponsored 'wrapper' installers bundling some pretty awful stuff - check out what they did with FileZilla - which is an even more intrusive advertising practice than that.

Secondly, they host a lot of executable code (and don't forget build scripts in source code, unless you check your Makefiles!), but they still don't use TLS, and don't even seem to have any plans to - which is by now negligent practice, I think, considering the widespread public knowledge of Hacking Team's (and GCHQ's) at-scale deployments of network-level file infectors.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by kkthegamer on Thursday May 07, 2015 @11:55AM (#9505955)
SourceForge itself is free software. I think that's one possible reason to use it rather than GitHub or else. The other possible is that SourceForge provide mailing list server and other service for projects. Anyway, you won't move a project around unless you have some strong motivations.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by olalonde on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:13PM (#9506122)
Is SourceForge really open source? Guess I must have missed that news. Regardless, Gitlab would still be a better choice in terms of UX and is also open source.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by e12e on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:46PM (#9506405)
It has been released as Apache Allura, Wikipedia has a nice overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Allura

Install docs: https://forge-allura.apache.org/docs/getting_started/install...

I agree that sourceforge.net as a service might not be my favourite, but Allura the forge-software seems pretty good. I think the only thing that comes close is the stack from Canonical -- but Allura seems more viable to self-host (and scale up when needed -- rather than "only a vm" or "full cluster"). It also seems less "overly opinionated", and still includes sensible defaults (contrast with getting up and running with Trac).

YMMV, but it doesn't look half-bad. Right now I don't need anything more than what you can easily get with either a separate wiki+mercurial+mailing-list, "just" trac or fossil -- but for something in-between "too big to host internally" and "too complex for Trac to be easy" -- it looks rather interesting. I'd love to hear any war stories.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by tobias2014 on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:33PM (#9506305)
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by shmerl on Thursday May 07, 2015 @01:07PM (#9506591)
Do you know if Gitlab allows attachments in bugs and comments? It's one of the major deficiencies in Github.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by DouweM on Thursday May 07, 2015 @01:19PM (#9506687)
GitLab developer here; it does! Where GitHub only allows images to be dragged into issue and comment description fields, GitLab allows this for any type of file.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by shmerl on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:04PM (#9507018)
Thanks! That's great. I'll use Gitlab going forward :)
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by treve on Thursday May 07, 2015 @11:14AM (#9505616)
Not having to move is a major plus.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by jlarocco on Thursday May 07, 2015 @03:52PM (#9507807)
Ditto. I more or less refuse to use Sourceforge.

There's an up to date clone on GitHub at https://github.com/ThomasAdam/tmux

Can't send patches to it, but it's great if you're just building it.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by thomasadam on Friday May 08, 2015 @08:29AM (#9511170)
That's right, you can't send me patches as they're to be sent to the tmux mailing list. Is this not made clear already in the repository description?
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by jsalit on Saturday May 09, 2015 @10:58PM (#9518608)
I don't think GP was criticizing, just making a note of it.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by Qwertious on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:47PM (#9507337)
Github isn't completely open-source. Source: http://tom.preston-werner.com/2011/11/22/open-source-everyth...
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by vog on Thursday May 07, 2015 @03:55PM (#9507828)
Or, they could go one step further and do it like WinSCP.

That is, WinSCP has an own website that contains ads with fake download buttons. It's really nasty, but at least the advertisement payments go directly to the project, rather than just to the hosting service.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by mrmondo on Thursday May 07, 2015 @06:12PM (#9508697)
I was thinking exactly this, I just logged a bug for them to move the project: https://sourceforge.net/p/tmux/tickets/192/
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by tslocum on Thursday May 07, 2015 @06:43PM (#9508873)
Aaaaaaaaaaaaand it's closed. Without comment.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by nchammas on Thursday May 07, 2015 @10:41PM (#9509721)
Searching the tmux mailing list [0], it looks like there were some recent discussions about migrating to GitHub.

Basically, it looks like the developers don't see any benefit to migrating that outweighs the cost of a migration. [1]

There is a GitHub mirror [2] maintained by, I think, one of the developers, but they don't accept pull requests.

It's interesting to note that, for such a popular project like tmux, there are so few contributors. [3] Five, to be exact.

Maybe that's an artifact of how the mirroring to GitHub works (perhaps the commit authors aren't translated correctly?), but I suspect it's more an artifact of an outdated contribution process and tooling.

[0] http://sourceforge.net/p/tmux/mailman/search/?q=github

[1] http://sourceforge.net/p/tmux/mailman/message/33826395/

[2] https://github.com/ThomasAdam/tmux

[3] https://github.com/ThomasAdam/tmux/graphs/contributors

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by nicm on Friday May 08, 2015 @03:51AM (#9510454)
lots of people have contributed to tmux (on a quick grep through the logs, probably ~25 have made significant or multiple contributions, ~170 have made small contributions)
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by nchammas on Friday May 08, 2015 @09:53AM (#9511703)
Hi Nicholas! That's good to hear, and definitely makes more sense given how popular and old tmux is as a project.

So I guess something just didn't translate correctly to Thomas's GitHub mirror.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by res0nat0r on Thursday May 07, 2015 @11:13AM (#9505613)
All I see after clicking download is a direct link to the file, which is in fact just a .tar.gz.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by jbnicolai on Thursday May 07, 2015 @11:14AM (#9505618)
Are you sure you don't have any ad blocker installed?
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by vampirechicken on Thursday May 07, 2015 @11:32AM (#9505782)
A reasonable followup question why wouldn't one have an ad blocker installed?
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by GrantSolar on Thursday May 07, 2015 @11:42AM (#9505855)
Because it's how 99% of websites get their funding, allowing them to survive. Why have an adblocker installed when you can avoid the sites with obnoxious adverts?
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by jkyle on Thursday May 07, 2015 @11:52AM (#9505931)
Sometimes I have to get useful tools from them....like tmux.

As to why I use Adblock, I've never. Not once. Ever. Bought anything from an ad on a website. I _have_ bought books and such from the referral links on blogs (which adblock doesn't block).

The reason I use adblock is because I'm not the demographic ads on websites are targeting. So websites aren't losing any revenue by me not seeing their ads.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by PeterUstinox on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:11PM (#9506116)
Of course they lose revenue. your view is like any other. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_per_impression) you won't be taking money from the company, which started the ad campaign. also: don't underestimate the effects on brand value, which will come subconsciously, if you look at ads. You will know certain companies are still active etc. This is why you don't necessarily need to be targeted. simply informed.

The "sometimes" you talk about should just be with ads on. it won't hurt much, because it's just sometimes.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by brodney on Thursday May 07, 2015 @01:03PM (#9506554)
> don't underestimate the effects on brand value, which will come subconsciously, if you look at ads.

This is exactly why I use adblock.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by jkyle on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:50PM (#9507360)
Only if you view CPI in isolation as money from the sky.

Marketers estimate the CPI they're willing to pay based on estimated conversions per impression. Ultimately, the money comes from sales. It always comes from sales.

If I don't ever purchase anything from a website ad, my impressions are worth zero. My impressions, and impressions by those like me, will drive down the price a company is willing to pay per impression since the conversion ratio also goes down. In fact, my impressions incur a negative effect since it still incurs a cost to the advertiser.

In the best of all possible worlds, only those who will ultimately buy a product are displayed the ad. Resulting in a 100% conversion ratio. Each impression would be maximally valuable and the price paid for that impression would rise to reflect that.

Those of us who use adblock have removed ourself from the market and from the conversion ratio calculations and cost per impression to the advertiser.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by threatofrain on Saturday May 09, 2015 @04:52AM (#9515890)
They might lose revenue at first, but in a way that is entirely healthy for a larger system of advertisers and clients, in that both advertiser and client reassess the effectiveness of an instrument (an ad network or product), and thus reassess the correctness of a price for an advertising opportunity.

Maybe I'm apathetic to these arguments because I'm quite comfortable paying for content and services, and I'm comfortable with a version of the web where a paying class gets to have paying-class products. If the public feels there should be a free thing, then let it be funded by taxes.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by adamrt on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:08PM (#9506079)
That's now how ads always work. Many sites get revenue based on impressions, not clicks or conversions.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by timdierks on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:55PM (#9506489)
Websites absolutely do lose money when you block their ads. Regardless of what one chooses to do, you should be aware of the facts.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by phjesusthatguy3 on Thursday May 07, 2015 @04:42PM (#9508149)
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by GrantSolar on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:13PM (#9506126)
Adverts are not just about getting a click to follow through to a purchase.

What do you gain by blocking adverts? An extra 150K from your data plan?

>websites aren't losing any revenue by me not seeing their ads.

This argument is a little too close to justifying piracy for my liking. "I wasn't going to buy it anyway, so it's fine"

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by smhenderson on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:57PM (#9506507)
What do you gain by blocking adverts? An extra 150K from your data plan?

Quicker page loads, avoiding seizure inducing ads that are designed to attract your attention in an overly aggressive way, better visibility of text because it's not surrounded by flashy pictures, animations and videos. Plus avoiding Flash/Java/JS ads poisoned with malicious content.

And, oh yeah, and ~150K that won't hit my data plan.

For the record, I don't block all ads. I have sites that I allow them on because I am a frequent user and their ads are not too obnoxious to deal with. If my page views (never clicks though) help them then great! But I surf with the blocker on by default for the reasons laid out above.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by kinghajj on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:23PM (#9506234)
> What do you gain by blocking adverts?

...a lack of adverts?

> This argument is a little too close to justifying piracy for my liking.

Except it's within everyone's rights to decide how their computers will render a given piece of markup.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by jkyle on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:36PM (#9506331)
> This argument is a little too close to justifying piracy for my liking. "I wasn't going to buy it anyway, so it's fine"

Do you also think not buying a Toyota is a little too close to car theft?

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by GrantSolar on Thursday May 07, 2015 @05:37PM (#9508473)
Consuming content or a product whilst deliberately evading the means put in place to compensate a creator for the work done is akin to piracy. I don't see how there's any question that that isn't at least a morally grey area
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by bitwize on Thursday May 07, 2015 @01:29PM (#9506759)
"Your contract with the network is, you're going to watch the spots. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming."
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by Karunamon on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:57PM (#9507409)
Because the venn diagram of "obnoxious adverts" and "adverts" is nearly a perfect circle.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by exarch on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:51PM (#9506446)
>Because it's how 99% of websites get their funding, allowing them to survive.

So then, I'll unblock ads to help companies survive just as soon as those companies start giving me money to help me survive.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by timdierks on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:54PM (#9506477)
If you don't value what the website is giving you, why are you visiting it?
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by phzn on Thursday May 07, 2015 @01:08PM (#9506600)
Curious, if I visit the site in question using lynx/links am I still in the wrong?
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by mburns on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:37PM (#9507248)
At least with lynx/links, you don't get any javascript functionality and the experience as a whole is diminished.

With an ad blocker, you selectively block the javascript you don't like but that the operators rely on to bring in revenue, while still getting the otherwise 'full' experience.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by Crito on Thursday May 07, 2015 @03:11PM (#9507508)
If sourceforge went under, do you think I'd be unable to get the source to tmux?

Since obviously I'd still be able to get tmux, what value is sourceforge actually providing me? They might be providing tmux developers some value, but they aren't providing any value to me.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by homulilly on Thursday May 07, 2015 @07:34PM (#9509118)
I value what these sites are giving me, but not enough to put up with ads. If adblock didn't exist I'd probably visit places like sf or youtube a lot less.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by endgame on Thursday May 07, 2015 @07:55PM (#9509200)
Advertisers had their chance to not suck, but they blew it. Sorry.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by bshimmin on Thursday May 07, 2015 @11:53AM (#9505933)
If you're developing anything for the web that might involve advertising, and even certain things that don't, it makes it hard to test, especially if you continually forget to disable your ad blocker. (I'm only being marginally facetious; I worked with a developer who refused to accept that his ad blocker prevented him from seeing issues with Omniture - now Site Catalyst - eating mouse clicks.)
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by sp332 on Thursday May 07, 2015 @11:42AM (#9505852)
The original question was, why use a host that tries to show you ads in the first place?
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by recursive on Thursday May 07, 2015 @05:00PM (#9508271)
Because I don't want my user agent to be modifying documents I'm requesting.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by wodenokoto on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:35PM (#9506321)
That is actually a rather unreasonable question. It's like telling Firefox users to install chrome.

Or that ponzu schemes are okay as long as you yourself don't have to deal with them.

Re:Tmux 2.0 released by apricot on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:43PM (#9507306)
A ponzu scheme is a fraudulent investment operation where the operator pays returns to its investors from citrus-flavoured soy sauce sent to the operators by new investors.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by djeikyb on Friday May 08, 2015 @12:11AM (#9509920)
If you try to curl that "direct" link, you'll find it isn't.
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by jodooshi on Saturday May 09, 2015 @11:36PM (#9518689)
Perhaps no advantage, but it's a good thing. As in the CPU market, there are Intel, AMD, even another architecture alternatives, eg. ARM. It's just an analogy. :-)
Re:Tmux 2.0 released by glesica on Thursday May 07, 2015 @06:53PM (#9508939)
Does anyone who would be downloading tmux not use an ad blocker? Because if so, consider me shocked. I mean, not that the ads aren't still a moral concern, but from a practical standpoint it doesn't seem like a big deal. I didn't even realize Sourceforge still had ads...