SourceForge, once a useful and trustworthy place to develop and host FLOSS applications, has faced a problem with the ads they allow on their sites - the green 'Download here' buttons that appear on many, many adds leading to all kinds of unwanted utilities have been spotted there as well. 'In the past few months, we have received some complaints about the site where the GIMP installers for the Microsoft Windows platforms are hosted. A free and open source graphic editor, similar to Photoshop. Sourceforge has recently changed ownership, and it is becoming apparent the new caretakers are trying new things.Ī big player to jump ship is “ GIMP”. “More recently additional revenue generation schemes, such as bundleware models, have been trialled, with the goal of further improving sourceforge's revenue.” There is a blurb on the business model section of their wiki that I find quite revealing:

Some projects are leaving Sourceforge, citing changes in their behavior in regards to advertising methods as their reason. It’s on Sourceforge.Īt the same time we are seeing some disturbing events taking place. Apache Open Office, a free alternative to the Microsoft products? You guessed it. VLC, one of the most capable video players? Also hosted on there. Need to download Filezilla, one of the best FTP clients? It’s hosted on Sourceforge. It has been a staple of many computer users for a number of years now.

It acts as a centralized location for software developers to control and manage free and open source software development.” as per their wiki. Sourceforge is “a web-based source code repository. Are we are starting to see the beginning of an exodus away from SourceForge as a hosting solution for software projects?

Filezilla download sourceforge