a little rant about sourceforge

[carlosponti]

i used to beable to get good open source programs on there and the last two i have downloaded have been subpar. the first was xgalaga for my wife which i never could get compiled on either fedora or slackware. second was WING which was another attempt at a galaga clone however it comes in binary form but apparently needs certain shared objects which of course they do not document which ones you need they do include one of the shared libraries but then once i get it to recognize it a second appears that i need. i am not saying sourceforge sucks just that some of thier projects they host get left behind and they need to clean up some of it or the originial builders need to keep up with thier projects.

[techieMoe]

One problem I had with a sourceforge project I started was how hard Sourceforge makes it to get rid of old, dead, or unmaintained projects. I started a project with the best of intentions but never updated it, and when I came back a few months later and tried to delete it, they gave me the run-around saying I should "look for other people to maintain the project" rather than outright deleting it. I eventually did get it deleted, but only after another project wanted to use my project's name.

I'm not trying to say Sourceforge sucks either, but instead offer a reason why so many unmaintained projects might still be lying around on the Sourceforge servers. I understand wanting to discourage people from creating a project on a whim that they have no intention of maintaining, but IMO not letting the original creator delete the project is a bit overboard.

[carlosponti]

yeah i dont know how many projects that seemed like GREAT ideas fall by the wayside because of one reason or another. i went to look up a project one time for some file reader and most were empty projects that had never been worked on and they have been around on sourceforge for years. the way i see it they should limit you from starting a project till you atleast have a beta. even if the beta is rough but that it will be a way to limit the amount of projects that get created and have nothing come to fruition. plus if there are projects started that after a few months with no developers they archive and drop from the main site. then if nothing is claimed on it after a year then drop it all together. i will be the first to say i am not guilty either of starting stuff and not finishing it. i have started so many projects, none that i have posted on sourceforge, and not finished them. one i had toyed with was making a C# based electronic checkbook and fund balancer etc. kinda like MS Money but cross platform. linux side using mono and windows using the .net framework. my only limiter is i dont know C# and my .net knowledge is lacking as well as the knowledge of mono.

plus here is an idea for any aspiring software writer who wants to contribute by creating a new project, research others first and see if you cant contribute to another project first before starting yet another galaga or mario brothers clone how many projects like that do you see. then if you dont like the current project then build your own.


ps the reason for the comment earlier about me not saying sourceforge sucks was to keep from offending anyone with sourceforge needs some work and having it misconstrued to say that i think it sucks. because it is great i get most if not all my software from there.

[techieMoe]

ps the reason for the comment earlier about me not saying sourceforge sucks was to keep from offending anyone with sourceforge needs some work and having it misconstrued to say that i think it sucks. because it is great i get most if not all my software from there.

Oh yes, no doubt Sourceforge is a great place. Some of my favorite projects (gaim, doom legacy, etc) are on there. I agree though that their site could use some work.

[jasonlambert]

lol, I said to a friend yesterday:

"Sourceforge is like a desolate wasteland of deserted projects that sounded like a good idea at the time"

[carlosponti]

lol i see it as just alot of people who cant finish anything, i noticed there would have been alot of those projects that would have been a great idea but there was no follow through.

[Odd_Bloke]

lol i see it as just alot of people who cant finish anything, i noticed there would have been alot of those projects that would have been a great idea but there was no follow through.

That's normally when people realise that no-one has done it before for a very good reason. :P

[bigtomrodney]

Ah you gotta love sourceforge, the few problems aside. I have to ask though, why would there be a specific need to delete a project? Surely the code could be used by someone somewhere eventually? ISn't that kinda the point?

[benjamin20]

thats kinda the problem realy. nobody wants to use someone elses abandoned code. thats realy the essential problem with current open source software, there is two - fifteen different half finished implementations of everything. noboby wants to add on or reuse someone elses code because the "wanna make there own and get the credit".

[techieMoe]

thats kinda the problem realy. nobody wants to use someone elses abandoned code. ... noboby wants to add on or reuse someone elses code because the "wanna make there own and get the credit".

I don't think that's necessarily the case. Most programmers I know don't like using someone else's code for things because they can't understand it, not because they want "credit". Programmers are notoriously bad at not commenting their code sufficiently and keeping the reasons for their coding decisions in their head.

There may be a perfectly usable Legend of the Red Dragon clone out there that someone abandoned years ago but if I can't decipher what the original author meant in his code, I'd just be better off making one of my own.