Why GitHub Will Overtake SourceForge
I was listening to the GitHub interview on the Web 2.0 Show that I missed when I heard Chris mention something that deserves repeating.
When you show up to project page on SourceForge, you’re completely befuddled as to where to go next:
You begin to ask yourself some basic questions: how old is this project, is this even the right project, where can I just download the f’ing thing?
The first glaring problem after I resized the screenshot is that the only things still legible on the page are the advertisements.
Now, let’s take a look at a GitHub project page:
Even after a resize, a few things are clear: you can find the download button quickly (that will actually download a tarball instead of taking you through thirty-seven more pages), when the last commit happened, and a number of other easily visible things you may be interested in.
The project’s homepage also happens to be the source browser, which for any geek (myself included) tickles a certain funny bone, being able to look at the code immediately. Furthermore, the page also displays the root-level README (if provided), which normally holds a multitude of useful information; something you should be able to read before bothering to download the project.
And hey, no ads! GitHub charges for private repositories, thus relieving the burden of trying to generate revenue via pageviews.
It’s not just Visual
Sure, someone could skin SourceForge to not be totally brain-dead, but there are also fundamental differences as to how the sites work.
If you have a grievance with one of the libraries hosted on SourceForge, you’re stuck filing a bug report or emailing the owner. The project could be years old and virtually unmaintained, but nevertheless, that’s the standard protocol.
The complete reverse of that on GitHub is you can click one button to fork the project and have your own copy to do with what you will. Whether it be making your fixes and submitting them back to the original owner, keeping them to yourself, or even convince people that your fork is the repository that people should be using from now on.
Welcome to the new age of open source programming and we’ve only just begun, fork me.
Hi PJ. I think you’re exactly right. And there’s another reason: github has a MUCH lower barrier to entry.
To start a new project, Sourceforge requires you to find a unique name, set up a new project (wait a few days), set up all sorts of pages and forums and junk. It’s a nightmare.
Github asks you to name your project and then push. Easy. Instantaneous. I find I’m uploading a bunch of semi-useful code to Github that I never would have bothered sending to sourceforge.
http://github.com/bronson/makefile-death/tree/master http://github.com/bronson/ctest/tree/master http://github.com/bronson/io/tree/master
Go github!
The same thing could be said of Google code :)
On the other hand: I recently had to download a couple of projects from GitHub, and my experience was something like “No thanks, I don’t want the source, let me just grab the distribution”. Until I got what the interface was about, which took a while.
GitHub is great but I don’t think Sourceforge is going anywhere…
The only question is with all this easy forking… which one is the main most maintained and/or most stable branch of the lot for a certain distribution… SF doesn’t have that problem…
Maybe github should have some history viewer to see what happened to the code (git already has this, github should have a higher leven one). So user know how the code progresses etc.
@Bart: I believe that git’s greatest strength (distributed version control) is also its greatest weakness (where’s the most official-ish one). To remedy this, I’ve seen several projects (mine included) which have a google code page for the bug tracking, wiki / documentation and then link into the github source.
GitHub, like git itself, stays out of the way and lets the programmer code, making adoption pretty simple for a developer already familiar with git.
IMO, Github is not a threat to Sourceforge. Google Code is.
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