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VA

SourceForge Code Release 97

Posted by emmett from the hey-look-free-source-code dept.
Precision writes "SourceForge, the opensource hosting service provided by VA Linux, has announced the initial code release. You can grab a copy here." SourceForge rocks my world.
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SourceForge Code Release More

SourceForge Code Release

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  • It's good to see these guys keeping the community alive. I couldn't help but notice that their stock was up today, to the tune of something like 25 points. When am I going to be able to buy a VALinux PPC box??

  • hey /. - follow their lead... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    now if taco would just get going and post the slashdot source, we'd be all set....
  • Here comes the inevitable hordes of whiners complaining about the absence of the Slashdot code release ...

    But seriously, although opensource is cool and everything and the more of it around the better, how useful is this code release likely to be for people ? Not intended as a criticism, just genuine curiosity. It would seem to me that the usefulness of this site is in the resources offered rather than the code itself. But still ,kudos, good show to VA, definitely one of the companies that "get it"

  • Microsoft could take a clue. (Score:4)

    by Jikes ( 123986 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @10:38AM (#1371706)
    With places like server51, sourceforge, xnot, and all their ilk, any dork who can type gcc can enter the world of program creation... This is a good thing. It gets people comfortable with software creation and the tools used.
    Microsoft is one of the biggest software manufacturers there is. Their products cover EVERYTHING. Yet not much else than Visual Basic is readily accessible by the average computer enthusiast. Why would it not be in MS's best interest to flood the market with dirt cheap or free copies of VC++ and development kits for the younguns to play with? Or do they do this already? Just a thought.
  • Zdnet did a pretty good write up [zdnet.com] of SourceForge a couple weeks back or so.
  • ACtually for me it will be really helpful. I host opensource projects for people and something like the sourceforge code would help me ramp up my services. I plan on spending a few hours Sunday and pouring over it and seeing some of the admin portion.

  • This is neat! (Score:5)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipakNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Friday January 14, 2000 @10:46AM (#1371711) Homepage Journal
    This is one -hell- of a system! I like it! At the moment, I've got most of the Free Film Project scattered over a bunch of systems, because no one of them provides everything I need. This will help me rationalise everything, a lot!

    P.S. To CmdrTaco - Here is a box. [] This box was donated by Ghostbusters, Inc, and comes complete with Enhanced(tm) SlashSource Troll containment fields. Place the box under such a troll, and activate, using the enclosed remote (-=). This will completely enclose the Troll in a Mk #5 Force Field, which can be released safely into any nuclear reactor core, for disposal.

  • Microsoft will never change its business practices unless it involves more people dumping money into their pockets, really. But there is no reason why Windows developers couldn't use SourceForge. The site is limited towards Open Source projects, not necessarily Linux.
  • If they did, sooner or later somebody would start a lawsuit claiming "unfair business practices" etc. Seriously, though, if MS thought there was a profit to be mad in it I suspect they would do it. Somebody (Borland maybe?) used to sell an "entry-level" compiler (C? Pascal? Don't remember) available only to college students. Don't know whatever happened to that. --john
  • I have been having trouble getting thru to valinux and sorceforge websites for last week or so. (server not responding...) Anybody else had this problem?

  • If I read the site correctly, VA is offering this out of the goodness of their heart. While I don't don't their intentions, I wonder how long this can last if it proves to be more of a burden than they want.

    Sure, VA has tons of money right now. But what happens when the good times stop rolling, and they really need to make money? When the shareholders start asking real questions like, "how do this bring value to my shares"?

    It sounds really cool, but then lots of cool parks get built when cities have lots of money, but then the maintenance bills still come due when the recessions hit. :)


    ---

  • Re:Anybody have trouble getting thru? (Score:3)

    by chrisd ( 1457 ) <chrisd@dibona.com> on Friday January 14, 2000 @11:18AM (#1371718) Homepage
    Nope, but if you want to call us up, we can see what's up.

    Chris
    --
    Grant Chair, Linux Int.
    Pres, SVLUG

  • I just grabbed a copy for myself... Not like I'll probably do anything with it, but it's still nice to know that I can one day rummage through it and other OS projects, if for nothing else, educational value.

    On the second note - Does VA build their own motherboards? Even if they did, I can't imagine that they'ed have enough volume to justify building PPC boards. Even with IBM releasing the specs for free. If you want LinuxPPC, go get a Mac.... But then you'll always get 2nd rate support than if you'd opted for an x86 system... I'm saying that, and I'm a Mac fan...
  • I know this is counterintuitive, but I usually get faster responces from their secure server. Try https://sourceforge.net [sourceforge.net]
    We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars --Oscar Wilde
  • In case you weren't trolling, or for others that don't know, there is slashdot source code available from http://slashdot.org/code.shtml

    However this source code is not very up to date, so that may be the reason why some people aren't happy about it. I'd like to see the slashdot code in its current state perhaps kept in CVS and then when considered stable a tarball can be made available from FTP.

    However, remember that anyone who writes code should be free not to release their source code if they don't want to. I'd like to see more upto date slashdot source but it's not my right to see it and I'm grateful for what we've been given.

  • yeah...well... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    too damn bad. There is nothing worse than people who don't practice what they preach.

    CmdrPhony handed out awards at that open source clusterfuck awards show in New York, yet he won't open up the source here. I am surprised that Stallman and his cult would even stand next to these incredible fakes here at Slapdash.

    At least with Sun and Apple, they spell out the fact that they are not TRUE open source in their licenses. They don't give the image that they are really the "good guys"

    Please sir: I am ready for that -1. Any Slapdash source criticism will be instantly moderated down, but the people really know, they are a buch of fakers.

  • I don't think that MS is giving away their software for free, but here at my college (IU) We were one of the schools that struck those big deals with MS, which sorta sucks cause all the computers run buggy Office 2000, but we get the whole Visual Studio for like 25 bucks or something and I know in a class Im in now, we can get J++ Visual Studio for free, so MS is doing some stuff, personnally I live in UNIX and like jdk and gcc and everytthing else, but free and cheap compilers are defintly the way to go about getting people interested in programming, I had to save up for like a year to afford a student copy of metroworks compiler when i started leanring about programming in mac, but it was worth every cent, the whole reason I got into linux was the free tools.
  • You can get the development software (VBasic, VC++, etc.) deeply discounted at colleges and universities. About a year ago the educational price for the Visual Developer Suite 6.0 Professional (VB, VC++, J++, FoxPro, and one other) was $250. The pro editions of VB or VC++ were on the order of $100. I recall seeing them advertised outside of the university for about 2-4 times these prices, so in some sense they do provide "dirt cheap" copies in the sense that the discounts are up to 75%.

    In a relative sense these are huge discounts. Of course, in an absolute sense this is a whole lot more expensive than gcc, et al.

  • Sure, VA has tons of money right now. But what happens when the good times stop rolling, and they really need to make money? When the shareholders start asking real questions like, "how do this bring value to my shares"?

    This brings publicity to VA. Most companies have a budget for publicity (not to be confused with a budget for advertising), SourceForge is part of VA's publicity budget.
  • Windows Developers can use SourceForge. As a matter of fact approximately 312 of the 994 hosted projects run on Windows. The SourceForge code runs on linux but SourceForge is about Open Source.

  • RELEASE THE SLASH CODE! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As much as I hate to admit it, I'm now convinced that those upset that the source to slash hasn't been released in over a year are completely right to complain.

    "slash" is supposedly an open source project - so where is the source?

    Rob, practice what you preach.
  • VA's core business strategy has nothing to do with software. They are, esentially, a hardware sales company that happens to support Linux. By offering tools and services such as SourceForge, they raise consumer awareness of themselves, with the end result being more sales of Linux-based systems. Its a win-win situation for Linux users and VA.

  • Re:Watch Out ... (Score:4)

    by Ledge Kindred ( 82988 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @12:40PM (#1371736)
    No not really. I've come to the conclusion that the /. gang just doesn't want to release the code for whatever reason and just uses the "the code's ugly, it still has bugs, it only works on our systems" rationalizations as excuses. Why? Who knows. Who cares. There are a number of other products out there now, like Squishdot [squishdot.org] that HAVE released the code, so I'll use those instead.

    As for the usefulness of SourceForge code, you better believe it! I work for a small software shop - one that's too small to be able to afford to buy some Big Brand Name project management software. Not that that's ever really hurt us - we're using pretty much all the same tools that SourceForge is front-ending, which means that if I can slap SourceForge on top of the stuff we're already doing, whammo, I have instant web-based project management for our little company and the only thing it cost us was the time it takes me to get it set up! And besides, I'll have all the code that makes it run, so I can easily modify it to suit our needs if I need to! Yes, my time is valuable and I could have been out there working on pay projects, but I think the end-result is much more valuable to us than if we had bought some closed-box software of which we didn't understand the inner workings.

    -=-=-=-=-

  • So, does anyone else think it would be great for the further community development of the Slash code if Rob would host it on SourceForge?

    -=-=-=-=-

  • Re:How is VA going to make money with this? (Score:3)

    by tytso ( 63275 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @01:08PM (#1371741) Homepage

    Sourceforge is a long-term investment in Open Source. You can call it "giving back to the community", and it is that, but it's also about trying to encourage the development of more cool software. Hopefully, with better infrastructure, the Open Source coders of the world can put out better software more quickly. This is good for all Linux companies, including VA Linux.

    At some level, this is no different from the developer support programs that Apple and Microsoft have. Those programs also cost Apple/Microsoft money; they're hardly profit centers! But given that with Open Source you don't have to tease developers with special programs so they can get the API's, we don't need standard developer support programs. But we can offer web sites like Source Forge which at some level is even more powerful. The goal is the same in both cases, though: to encourge 3rd party developers to write more cool software, thus enchancing the value of the platform. This strategy works for Windows and MacOS ---- why shouldn't we try to do something similar and support Open Source developers?

  • Slashdot is a computer program? So that stuff about my page being generated by a Team of Elite Squirrels is a lie?
  • Way to go, guys. Now the slash source release will be delayed [slashdot.org] 24n hours, where n = the number of slash source release complaints attached to this article. :-P
  • The entire install instructions are as follows:

    (INSTALL)----------------

    There really is no SourceForge install procedure, since our
    site is spread across 14 servers.

    You can play with pieces of the site by setting up Apache/PHP
    and pointing the document root to this distribution. It will
    be necessary as well to setup MySQL and setup tables as described
    in db/sourceforge.sql.

    After that... :)

    I'm not sure we'll ever really have something as simple as
    an autoconf install, but we may be able to get certain modules
    to work better as independent systems.

    - The SourceForge Crew
    (END)

    ----------------------------

    Needless to say, that's somewhat less than helpful. I did that, and I get a lot of php errors. This appears to be in the spirit of "Here's what we run. You can use it to inspire your own development." Don't expect to install this and have your own little "mini-sourceforge." Good that they released something though, unlike certain other so-called Open Source advocates.

    "Moderation is good, in theory."
    -Larry Wall

  • By supplying free sw developers with better tools (hosting, CVS, FTP, etc) they are accelerating the pace at which Linux improves. Something on the scale of SourceForge is likely to have a dramatic impact.

    The better that Linux becomes, the more people will use it. The more people that use it, the more boxes VA sells (and the more developers there will be to improve it, repeat ad infinitum).

    They are releasing the source code because it will do them a lot of good if others use it to host free software projects. It also happens to help us.

    They are also exploiting their speed, agility, and 100% focus on Linux to become THE brand name for Linux hardware before one of the major manufacturers gets around to pulling their head out of their ass and making any substantial move.

    Overall, it seems to me that VA is a very cool company that a) knows what's up b) has a solid business plan c) makes good hardware and d) does the right thing by the Linux community. I think my next workstation will be from them.


    --

  • Who really cares anymore? If he wants to threaten us with a later code release, thats pretty passe; he's made it quite a while on his own. I mean if thats what the Open Source community is all about... threatening people with the things that should have always been there, its not quite the great community I always thought it was.

  • Feedback Whining makes it worse! (Score:3)

    by Pike ( 52876 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @01:34PM (#1371749) Journal
    Don't you remember CmdrTaco saying in the recnt interview [slashdot.org] that everytime someone asks about it, he's going to delay the slash release by 24 hrs? We're already up to a couple of weeks' delay judging by the comments in this article.

    Agreed, it seems miserly to withhold the code in an ostensibly open source project just because you don't like whiners. And I note that, because of human nature, not only does release time += 24hrs * complaints but complaints[N] += complaints[N-1]*2^delay ! (feedback loop) I.e., complaints increase delay, but delay also increases complaints.

    But you guys aren't helping any. Write your own if you're so very impatient, and release it...start your own project.
  • Maybe they will use the time to clean up the code so that it will finally be worthy of our eyes?
  • Now, THERE's a good idea.
  • Stop talking the talk if they can't walk the walk

    Okay, that's enough. /. isn't an Open Source advocacy site. They are "news for nerds, stuff that matters". That stuff that matters just happens to include Open Source stuff.

    What talk should Rob stop. He's repeated said he wasn't going to release the slash source ... and he hasn't. Sounds like the talk matches the walk pretty well.

    Remember, /. isn't solely about Open Source and Linux. It's abotu all sorts of things which just happens to include open source and Linux. Maybe Rob doesn't support open source. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have anything to do with the stories on the front page.

    -Brent
  • Hey, give Rob a break. If we don't stop putting him on the hot seat for this, he might stop posting stories about cool new Open Sources being made availble.

    If only to save him some pain when it brings up the inevitable subject of the slash code. :-)


    -Jordan Henderson

  • Hey...

    Yep, we knew that the hardware we use the code on would make installing it (even with a large amount of documentation which it doesn't have right now) difficult.

    In the end we figured that if even the login code or otehr stuff in the code helped out, it wouldn't be a waste to release it.

    That said, I know tony and the crew are working to make the docs better. But developing the site is probably higher priority to them right now.

    Chris DiBona

    --
    Grant Chair, Linux Int.
    Pres, SVLUG

  • It's never a waste to release code. Good show. What would help most would be a couple pointers to where the basic config stuff is, and perhaps a quick sketch of what your setup is like (so we'd know roughly what might go where). Also, are you guys running this on php 3 or 4? I'm as good as the next guy at figuring out how to get a web application running (ok, probably better than the average next guy), but I wasn't really sure where to begin with this. Granted I only spent about 10 minutes fooling with it. :-)

    And hey, since it's a sourceforge project, maybe others will step in and write some docs. Hell, maybe I will, if I figure out what's what.

    "Moderation is good, in theory."
    -Larry Wall

  • After several 'incidents' with our paid-for virtual hosting here in the UK, we have started moving several features and replicating downloads over to our unit in SourceForge. So far it's been more reliable than our paid-for webspace, and just as quick, even though it's coming across the water.

    One downer is that there's no ftp uploading availability. Instead it allows rsync and scp file transfers. This is done for security benefits. I also need a secure logon to admin our project. Either way this has got the makings of a really impressive service.

    This is not a replacement for Freshmeat. It's something different. It's gives a central point for project developers, and also somewhere users can go to discuss project features, bugs, etc with the project maintainers.

    In the long-term, I guess VA Linux is going to put more back into the community with SourceForge, than they are with Linux.com.

    I just hope it stays free!
  • Pardon my idiocy please... what source code do we want from /.?
  • Marty,
    Thanks for the compliments. We appreciate them and will continue to work hard for the community.
  • The usefulness of the site is in the resources being offered. We are in a constant development cycle to continue the feature set of the site and decided to release the code to reaffirm our commitment to practicing the Open Source Philosophy. We also viewed this as a way for the community to help shape future direction of SourceForge
  • We apoligize for the PHP errors your receiving. We decided on Tuesday afternoon of this week to release the code today and have spent the time since then just cleaning up the code and trying to ensure that it met the standards of the Practice-Software-Release-HOWTO. If you can document your specific problems we can probably help you out. Send the reports to admin@sourceforge.net
  • email me direct with your contact info and I'll see if we can burn a few cycles to help you out.
  • Why would it not be in MS's best interest to flood the market with dirt cheap or free copies of VC++ and development kits for the younguns to play with?

    Well, they do offer deeply-discounted educational versions for students. Like $99 or something.

    I agree, though. Flood the marketplace with free compilers. They could place restrictions on compiling commercial apps with it and then real developers would by the real thing. Not that I like closed-source software, but I guess M$ has to make money somehow. There software is just too crappy to give away for free. :)

  • The problem here is that the slash code gets delayed every time someone asks him for it. I think its been moved back to 2050 or so now.

    What I'd like to see someone write is a slashdot article grabber. You could just go and grab each posting from slashdot as if it were usenet and re post them on a site with open source.

    btw: I'm very glad to see source forgge release the code. They appear to be the best for hosting your project.
  • Maybe there's a reason they haven't released it...maybe it's all a fraud, and they're really a M$ shop, they just don't want us to know.
  • why do they still use majordomo,
    which is not open source???

    greetings, eMBee.
    --
  • SourceForge is not using majordomo. We are using GNU Mailman to manage our mailing lists. For more info goto http://www.lists.org

  • Arrogant and hypocritical (Score:4)

    by SurfsUp ( 11523 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @04:47PM (#1371771)
    Don't you remember CmdrTaco saying in the recnt interview that everytime someone asks about it, he's going to delay the slash release by 24 hrs?

    Yes, I perceived that as arrogant and hypocritical, and I wasn't impressed.
  • server51.freshmeat.net..andovers soon to be answer to sourceforge.
  • 8. Rob and crew are waiting for andovers new server51 site - the answer to sourceforge hosted at freshmeat.
  • Tech Support. (okay, two words.) The 'learning curve' of manipulating the Windows OS is quite steep (compared to command-line Unix or DOS). The developer cost for compilers reflects their cost for supporting the learning curve. The 'educational' cost for the compilers reflects the true cost of the product itself - since it is assumed an educational institution will have an internal community of experienced users to do all the hand-holding required to get through the learning curve. IMHO, of course.

  • That's the hard part about releasing custom code for a website -- it usually grows out of a side project thrown together one afternoon out of a lark, with pieces hobbled, hacked, and crufted together here and there. Now add on a database with table designs and queries evolving over the months, as well as custom hacks for speed and flexibility.

    It's hard enough to keep something like that going (especially if you've coded yourself into a corner -- how many times can you take down your website for a week while you rewrite something from scratch?) let alone packaging everything up in a consistent bundle so people can install it in diverse environments on their own. You keep your web documents in /var/www? Maybe I keep mine in /usr/local/httpd/public_html. What if you're using a later version of CGI.pm than I am? Or an earlier one? How about answering a hundred questions like that every day? No thanks! Why should I hack on your code for a week just to see if I can get it to run? It's not like you're building a kernel from scratch! :)

    There's a whole lot of work that goes into organizing something like this, and VA Linux deserves commendation for getting this far. (Anyone curious about my experiences ought to check out Everything Development [everydevel.com], a system I've played with a bit. They spent months working on installation and though it's still not perfect, their hard work has really paid off. I don't take credit for anything they've done.)

    --

  • You ever notice how difficult it is to find some of the smaller open source projects that you just know you saw around? You search the web for hours in vain?

    That will be one of the best contributions of this setup. A lot of the smaller projects are going to gravitate to web sites like Soureforge, making them much easier to locate. If you can locate an existing project, you can help it.

    Much of the competeing Open source projects probably started because someone did not know that the origional existed. Of course, i gues that's also what freshmeat is for.

  • good point, but i understand that postgres is just to slow, so there are no real alternatives...

    greetings, eMBee.
    --
  • I actually downloaded a copy of the code once a long time ago. But I never used it although I did poke around in it for about an hour just to see what was up. it's been a year since the last slashdot release, I think someone said?

    I kind of understand that Rob doesn't get paid to package the code neatly and he probably doesn't even enjoy doing it that much either. And he doesn't have a lot of free time probably.

    On the other hand I guess people would like to see the code and use it.

    So why doesn't someone offer to handle packaging for Rob. For free. (Because we expect him to do it for free) Actually maybe a bunch of people could work on it. They would be given access to a lot of fairly raw code that Rob doesn't feel is ready yet.

    They would be responcible to:

    1) package the code.
    2) perhaps fix the occasional bug.
    3) answer newbie questions.


    There could even be a full mailing list [slash-dev] for questions etc.

    This way the code would be out there and Rob could spend the afternoon in his hamock at the geek compound. Everyone would be happy. :)

    personally this doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun so I won't volunteer. but I don't use the slashdot code so I could be wrong about how fun a progect it would be.

    -error27
  • For goodness' sakes, go to http://www.mysql.com/download.html [mysql.com], and download the GPL version of MySQL.

    Ugh, another degrading experience, answering an AC article.

  • It would seem to me that the usefulness of this site is in the resources offered rather than the code itself

    Not true. Monday morning, I'm going to suggest to my manager that we use SourceForge internally, since we're about to switch to CVS anyway. And, we certainly could use all the SourceForge extras, like bug tracking, forums, web interface, etc. Remember, we can't use the public SourceForge site because our product uses a closed license.

    You're right in that, if VA does a good job, there probably is not a need for a public clone of SourceForge. But corporate developers will love this for internal use. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to measure how widely it's being used since the public will never see these sites.
  • Do you really think any nuclear reactor can withstand the might of a *slashdot* troll? The only way to safely dispose of the troll will be to carry the box to mount Doom and kill -9 troll :).

    On topic, way to go SourceForge!!

  • Absolutely they deserve commendation, for releasing the code, and for being right here and offering to help. I know how dodgy web apps can get, and how environment-dependent they often are. My post wasn't meant to be a criticism so much as a pointer to where they might want to go next.

    That said, I don't think that the way things usually are, right now, is the way they should be. That is, if I'm writing an application, it's my responsibility to ensure that it will still work, even if you keep your docs in /usr/local/httpd/public_html, or etc etc. I have issues with the way the so many web developers seem to feel that "if it works for me, then it's good enough." It's NOT good enough. If I spend months of my time writing code, and when I'm finished I discover that I've created something so non-portable and incomprehensible that I'm the only one who could possibly use it, I feel like I've lost something. I feel like I've failed in some important way. More web developers should feel this way, and projects should be opened up earlier than they currently are. I don't know if this is coherent or not, but my point is that the majority of web development processes are ad-hoc and undisciplined, and therefore, in some important way, broken.

    I've of course been guilty of this myself. But I try. When I'm writing something, I try to always be thinking about how this could be made to run in another environment, how someone could easily configure it for their system, how to make it portable. The excuse that "we coded ourselves into a corner" just doesn't cut it. If you have, then fork the code and rewrite it from the ground up, if you have to.

    This is not at all meant to be a flame at you, or at VA, or anyone. It's just my thoughts on a common problem I see in web apps. The "good enough" syndrome. Hopefully as the field matures, we'll see people working harder to avoid the "write once, run ONLY HERE" mentality.

    "Moderation is good, in theory."
    -Larry Wall


  • You're absolutely right. We should all strive to write good, portable, clean, well-commented code even if no one will ever see it. (One of the Perl rules I picked up somewhere is "Always use -w and strict in a program over ten lines or a program you'll use more than twice.")

    Still, I'm willing to give groups like SourceForge and Slashdot quite a lot of slack in the matter. They don't exist to produce high-quality code to help people build similar websites. That may come about as a result of their primary mission, but it's a mistake to put that ahead of providing a good place for Open Source projects to put their stuff or to provide an outlet for interesting news and information and public discussion about the news and information.

    I'm sure they'd rather have good and useful websites with ugly code (that everyone wants to use) than boring and useless websites with beautiful code (that no one cares about using). Ideally, we shouldn't even have to make that tradeoff. Maybe someday, we won't have to.

    --

  • Umm... AppWatch is basically Freshmeat, and neither are like SourceForge.
  • Still, I'm willing to give groups like SourceForge and Slashdot quite a lot of slack in the matter.

    I'm willing to give them some slack, but maybe less than you. Yes, producing a useful site is a noble and worthwhile goal. But the overall wastefulness of writing bad code still irks me. Imagine if the Slash code was portable, sensible, and open-source. The overall results would be:

    1) It would be easier for Rob and others to implement new features. It would take less time, and be less likely to break existing features. This is a natural result of good code, and on obvious Win for everyone.

    2) Say the work Rob and others put into the code is X. Then say the benefit of having Slashdot is Y (vague terms, but you get the idea). If the code is ugly and closed, the total benefit gained from X is simply Y. This is well and good. But then imagine that the code is open and portable. So there is some additional benefit to be had from all the other sites that could use it. Call this Z. Good prgramming is inherently more beneficial than bad. In essence, bad programming is wasteful, since it restricts it's own use and limits the benefit we all gain from it.

    I hate to feel like my work has been wasted. But many web programmers don't seem to feel that their work has any value outside of the websites they are personally running. If the webmasters who collectively wrote Apache felt that way, how much poorer would the whole web be now? All the justifications for why open source is better than closed apply just as well to web applications. It hurts me to see MS hoard and hide all their work and deprive the world of any benefit we might be able to gain from it. It hurts me equally to see a tool as powerful as slashdot hide it's code and only grant us the value of the site content itself. For MS to do it, well, that's their choice, wrong though it may be. But for slash to do it, that's just hypocrisy and selfishness.

    I will certainly cut sourceforge massive slack. They're doing the right thing. Their code is now a project on sourceforge itself, and anyone can contribute to it's improvement. But Rob and co. have had plenty of time to do things right, and simply, arrogantly, refuse to. No more slack is deserved here.

    "Moderation is good, in theory."
    -Larry Wall

  • Hey guess what? This already exists. There's a mailing list called slash-help [asu.edu] which was formed to help nurse people through the painful slash setup process, and to announce further development and whatnot. Once, it would have been a fertile field for just what you proposed. A truly open development project which Rob wouldn't have had to work on himself. Now, though, it's unlikely anyone there is gonna help His Highness Malda, and the list is more of a "how can we get rid of this awful legacy albatross that is Slash?" Frankly, Rob blew it. He's squandered the potential development community by being repeatedly arrogant, obnoxious, and completely dismissive of the principles /. supposedly supports. So, basically, it's too late for that. But it would have been an excellent idea, back in the day.

    "Moderation is good, in theory."
    -Larry Wall

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