GIMP, Citing Ad Policies, Moves to FTP Rather Than SourceForge Downloads 336
Dangerous_Minds writes "GIMP, a free and open source alternative to image manipulation software like Photoshop, recently announced that it will no longer be distributing their program through SourceForge. Citing some of the ads as reasons, they say that the tipping point was 'the introduction of their own SourceForge Installer software, which bundles third-party offers with Free Software packages. We do not want to support this kind of behavior, and have thus decided to abandon SourceForge.' The policy changes were reported back in August by Gluster. GIMP is now distributing their software via their own FTP page instead." Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent.
BT (Score:5, Insightful)
Get a torrent up, many of us will seed for the community.
Re:BT (Score:5, Insightful)
You get to a download page and there are ads that scream things like "DOWNLOAD NOW", "CLICK HERE TO INSTALL", etc.
Frequent/savvy users are able to figure this out, but when you tell your parents that they can get this free photo editor, they end up with the same damn crapware on their computer as they would have had if they just went ahead and tried to pirate photoshop. The same thing is true about Paint.Net's download page...on their page, I see two giant colorful "Download" buttons that are actually ads. The actual download link is a standard text link that says "Paint.NET v3.5.11" which takes you to another page that has another giant colorful "Download" button. On that page, the real download links look like fake links...the button says "Download Now DotPDN LLC" which doesn't sound at all like what you want.
Sourceforge isn't quite as bad...the ads aren't always there, and often they show up on the post download ad-page (the one that says "your download will start shortly" so there if you click them, you often end up with both the file you want *and* the crapware...leaving a 50/50 chance the user will get the right file.
I get why the pirate sites have these misleading ads (and it probably helps discourage people from software piracy since they try it, get some weird downloader and ad-toolbar instead of the software they were looking for, and then give up)...but when respectable free alternatives resort to the same shady ads? wtf?
Re:BT (Score:5, Insightful)
That kind of junk you talk about with Paint.Net is exactly why I don't use it.
I very much support GIMP in using their own FTP server. Of course, nothing stops them from hosting their own bittorent tracker though. Using bit-torrent doesn't mean the torrent files has to go through the pirate bay or other torrent sites.
Re:BT (Score:5, Insightful)
I very much support GIMP in using their own FTP server. Of course, nothing stops them from hosting their own bittorent tracker though. Using bit-torrent doesn't mean the torrent files has to go through the pirate bay or other torrent sites.
They don't even need to host their own tracker. There are some industrial strength public trackers out there:
PublicBitTorrent [publicbt.com]
OpenBitTorrent [openbittorrent.com]
Demonii [demonii.com]
They don't host torrents or anything else, they just provider tracker service. The gimp project would only need to generate a torrent file with one or more of those listed as trackers and then stick the torrent file on their ftp site.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:BT (Score:4, Informative)
I didn't see you being made fun of, I see a newcomer to a forum expressing a valid but ultimately unaccepted point, being told (yes, a bit harshly by one person who then apologized) that that's the way the developer wants it on his website, and in the end, there were no hard feelings expressed from anyone on the site.
If that's what you consider a beat-down, how have you survived the wild west of Slashdot??
Re:BT (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes, but you're not YOUR parents although you could very well be your own grandfather.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_My_Own_Grandpa [wikipedia.org]
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This is what too many on /. don't get. It's not about whether or not YOU can access the appropriate installer. Of course you can, else chances are greater than not that you wouldn't be here.
The question is about the ordinary folk and I'm sorry, they aren't going to use bittorrent.
Last time I checked, GIMP was not a program for "ordinary folk". Not that Photoshop is either. I do like the direct FTP distribution idea, if they can work a browser they can get the file... as long as someone is paying for the bandwidth.
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Opera does.
-J
Re:BT (Score:4, Funny)
Did you like...just read the first sentence of his/her post and then ignore the rest?
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Suspect trolling, but I'll take the bait..
What?
If you worried about compromised downloads, just about every project that does this publishes the hashes on their official site. Easy to verify someone hasn't slipped something in there...
good move (Score:5, Informative)
Haven't been impressed by SourceForge's recent policy of late- especially when I unclick the 'free software' offers attached to each download, yet they install anyway!
Re:good move (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations, fucking everything for short-term profit .
Re: good move (Score:2)
If you think the only choice in life is who will fuck you, consider a career outside prostitution. There are plenty of living arrangements that are not dominated by government or business interests. However they have been unfortunately successful at promoting the false dilemma fallacy.
Re:good move (Score:5, Informative)
Haven't been impressed by SourceForge's recent policy of late- especially when I unclick the 'free software' offers attached to each download, yet they install anyway!
Gee, that happens to you too? And here I was thinking that it was just Operator Error on my part.
Re:good move (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't say i've ever downloaded an "installer" from sourceforge, usually i just download actual source code...
On the other hand i always hated how the download link goes to another page which then performs the download in the background on a timer, i have always hated pages like this and its especially bad for something like sourceforge.
I want a link i can cut+paste into wget, i DO NOT want anything to start downloading in my browser unless i explicitly tell it to. Given the nature of sourceforge, many users of the site will be downloading something not to their local box where their browser is running but to a server of some kind. And i would much rather download a file direct to a gigabit colocated box than first download it to my workstation over DSL and then upload it back to the colo box using the pitiful upstream connection we have here.
Re:good move (Score:5, Informative)
Adblock, removes all the bullshit ads and leaves only the real download button...
If ads are intentionally trying to mislead then i have absolutely no intention of supporting them.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Sourceforge is garbage now.
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. Good on the GIMP guys. Freaked me out the first time I got that on SF.
Re: (Score:3)
All this talk about gimps and San Francisco...
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
How to destroy a powerful brand in 1 easy steps! (SourceForge, not GIMP.)
And yeah, while SourceForge has been declining for a while now, this is something entirely different from a slow decline... they may as well have taken it out back and shot it. Be quicker, and probably cheaper in the long run too.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
they may as well have taken it out back and shot it. Be quicker, and probably cheaper in the long run too.
If they did this, they'd just catch a bunch of nerd range. This way, they hack together a cheap and craptacular installer, and then the nerds demand it be shut down. Parent company closes down a money-losing business with the users' blessing.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
It's easy enough for me to click the Decline button instead of Accept (I'm one of the minority of users who reads things like that), but the installer doesn't even work that well. I was using Windows Remote Desktop to connect with a client's server, and the connection was pretty spotty. The server desktop was more like a slideshow. So instead of trying to edit code directly, I decided to upload all of their code to an FTP server, edit it locally, and then download the changes. So, I go to install Filezilla on the remote server. The entire SourceForge site is a mess. My remote desktop connection is already a slideshow and then SF is showing me Flash ads on every page, including the download pages, and when I finally punch through that mess and get the installer which I know is coming, I run the thing and it tells me I don't have an internet connection. Which is interesting, since I'm running the installer via remote desktop. Maybe it uses a port that was blocked on the network. After a few futile attempts to find a non-installer link on SF, I jumped back to my local PC and found a usable URL that I pasted into the remote desktop session to download. At least Filezilla is hosted on download.filezilla-project.org, but I'm sure there are a lot of projects hosted on SF that don't have a great alternative place to download.
Dice completely ruined the reputation of SourceForge. Slashdot isn't completely in the shitter yet, but I feel like it's inevitable. Well, we had a good run, anyway.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Pah. Slashdot's been in the shitter for years, it's just that we can still use the periscope and snorkel.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
"Sourceforge is garbage now."
So is Slashdot. Neither are an unbiased, open community anymore and as such no longer serve their intended purpose. Perhaps that was the goal all along.
Here is another bit of information that needs to be thrown in the mix.
From the Dice Holdings Inc. Third Quarter 2013 Results posted here:
http://www.diceholdingsinc.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=211152&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1869460&highlight=
"For the quarter ended September 30, 2013, Tech & Clearance segment revenues increased 12% year-over-year to $37.0 million, or 70% of Dice Holdings' consolidated revenues. Slashdot Media contributed $3.7 million to revenues in the third quarter of 2013, as compared to $0.8 million in the same period a year ago, while The IT Job Board® added $1.1 million to Tech & Clearance revenues in the quarter after writing down $0.4 million of acquired revenue. Third quarter revenues in our Dice.com service increased slightly compared to the prior year's third quarter, while ClearanceJobs.com posted a 5% year-over-year decline in revenues due to sequestration..."
When growth in all other sectors remained relatively minimal, revenue from Slashdot increased roughly four-fold. How, in the last year alone, has Slashdot managed to bring in that much more revenue? Who handed over nearly 3 million dollars this last year?
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe Slashdot offer a service where a company pays a fee to guarantee a story makes it to the front page.
Re:Good (Score:5, Funny)
They outsourced the editing department to India so that the grammar and spelling errors could mask their nefarious activities. Sneaky bastards!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
There was probably also a four-fold increase in ads and slashvertisements drawing ad impressions.
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Advertisers. /. runs a business model in a similar manner to Google. Put up the content for no direct charge, and sell advertising space.
A business model I happen to like*, since I'd rather not pay a subscription fee for a website's bandwidth, hosting, etc.
* So long as the ads remain in their predictable spaces, and are not intrusive. As soon as obnoxious, flashing, "Download HERE!!!", ads start showing up I will start using adblock.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Just about all download sites are garbage anymore. The only one I find that has no Adware garbage on it is nonags.com, but it's woefully out of date.
When I got to tell our customers "Don't Download Anything, Anywhere, Anytime" because I can't trust any download site Including the Windows 8 Store, There's an epidemic going on.
Until AV Programs start getting a pair and flag anything that installs as bundleware malicious, this will not stop, Although you'll never see it because Big Names like Google and Microsoft Both bundle their apps with software.
If it worked for CNet's downloads.com for Windows (Score:4, Informative)
then certainly the open source community would appreciate bundled bullshit too!
shovelware? (Score:5, Funny)
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unacceptable (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole installer hi-jacking is unacceptable. "OpenSource" just loose serious credibility.
Re:unacceptable (Score:4, Informative)
It Gets worse.
Just about every popular Open Source program out there is Drive by Kidnapped. Just search for any Open source program on google and bing and see what I mean.
VLC media player, 7Zip and firefox seem to be the popular drive-by bait and switch downlaods I seen. There's even a chromium browser ripoff that impersonates google chrome, albeit with a square chrome logo instead of a round one.
Re:unacceptable (Score:4, Informative)
I believe he is talking about the "Ads related to vlc" which are at the top of the google search. In my search I get two:
Download VLC Player 2013 - Vlc.downloadster.org
and
VLC Player 2012 Download - VLC - Get The Latest Version
I am not clicking them but I am sure they contain bogus versions with crapware attached.
Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
As a fellow SourceForge user, I was also outraged when I noticed this. SourceForge used to be the go-to place if you had an Open Source project you wanted hosted. They've lacked focus for some time, making all sorts of failed changes that only bloated their surface area without bringing any actual benefit. Perhaps the screws are to them to become profitable. Slashdot's semi-recent foray into HTML5 randomness and video-ads-as-articles shows similar direction.
They've lost a lot of their user base, are bleeding what they've still got, and potential new users are almost universally going to GitHub and the like. It's a bit depressing.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone should mirror sourceforge so when they do implode, the code/documents from any dormant projects isn't lost
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not Gopher? (Score:2)
Lol, note. (Score:5, Insightful)
Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent.
Good to know I can blame the decline of two great sites on the same company.
Yeah.... (Score:5, Interesting)
bravo (Score:2)
Just... bravo.
SorceForge jumped the shark long ago... (Score:4, Insightful)
...unless you're running an iron-clad adblocker. It's like Vegas on every page and especially for downloads.
This is why people have been migrating to GitHub and bigger projects have been consolidating into major OSS players that can afford their own servers/presence (ex: Apache, Mozilla, etc). I'm surprised so few established projects use BT as their primary distribution channel considering all you need to do is run a BT daemon on your server to seed it. In the worst case, you use the same amount of bandwidth, while in the best others reduce your load.
All web companies that act as intermediaries eventually become the ad-infested hell-holes that they replaced as they try to turn greater and greater profits out of their properties. Tucows and most gaming news sites from the late 90s are prime examples.
Three strikes against torrent for smaller projects (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Those that don't have BT clients would get them. Most people have them, anyway.
Any reliable stats as to this?
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I'm surprised so few established projects use BT as their primary distribution channel considering all you need to do is run a BT daemon on your server to seed it
Well, first you need to have the majority of your clients download a BT client, from a similar collection of shady sites with DOWNLOAD NOW arrows pointing everywhere. Of course you can host a copy of a small BT client on your server, but which one? The tiny one with obvious pirate search ads at the top, or the one wrapped in a similar bloatware wrapper? Will the BT installer get past the file-download-proxy-scanner at your office? Maybe.
Then, likely, you need to have all of your corporate customers wait
Alternate host? (Score:5, Interesting)
sf.net was the only project host which still offered release downloads. Not every project can afford a deviated download solutions for all their releases.
Now that sf.net has been compromised, what alternative are there?
It's quite ridiculous considering that the sf.net download mirrors are sponsored.
Re: (Score:2)
"deviated download solution"?
Mind sharing a link with us?
Try Savannah - The FSF version of Sourceforge (Score:3, Informative)
The FSF run their own project hosting website at http://savannah.nongnu.org/ [nongnu.org]
I suspect it's about to become rather more popular.
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This is a big problem for Windows and Mac users. Linux users who don't stick close to the bleeding edge aren't affected quite as much, since we get the vast majority of FOSS software from distro repos.
Want to download widgetSmasherX?
sudo yum/apt-get install widgetSmasherX
Done.
Likewise for Android users, who just install via the F-Droid repo.
Bleeding-edge Linux users will most likely be fine, as they will be savvy enough to find their software elsewhere and compile if needs be.
Re: (Score:3)
CodePlex?
Re:Alternate host? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.berlios.de/ [berlios.de] - Has been around forever, and is somewhat popular.
Or you could check the list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_software_hosting_facilities [wikipedia.org]
Windows binaries (Score:2)
Not. Acceptable. (Score:5, Informative)
Please inform your "corporate parent" that installer hijacking is a dick move.
How would an installer work.... (Score:2)
Do they have separate installers for every conceivable operating system or something?
Isn't the installer opt-in? (Score:2)
I have a project on Sourceforge and it just uses it's own installer (Nullsoft). So, I would assume that you have a choice to use the adware installer, or not if you don't want to.
Re: (Score:3)
If its anything like some of the other spyware installers I have seen, its simply a wrapper around the user-provided installer.
So you run their installer which does all the spyware stuff and then runs the real installer exe.
Re:Isn't the installer opt-in? (Score:4, Informative)
This post [ycombinator.com] (found in the comments of TFA) contains more details. The bundling only happens if the project owner requests it. And the user can reject installing anything other than the application they came for.
I still think it's a bad idea though: apparently some projects did accept this (they get a cut of the revenue) and as a result users might become wary of downloading things from SourceForge. Trust is easier lost than gained. In fact, some users are so paranoid about installers that we've been releasing our Windows build of openMSX as a ZIP file in addition to an installer for several years now.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
You are not alone.
I first hit this when fetching subversion. I think it gave me an Ask Jeeves toolbar pox instead.
Yes! I heartily agree (Score:2)
That bundling of crapware really pissed me off badly. Open source things are not supposed to be doing that.
Dice and some real concrete steps (Score:5, Insightful)
I was user 341 at Sourceforge, 14 years ago.
I always liked the SF.net idea. This is kinda sad to see happening.
But enough crying over spilt milk.
* Don't use Dice, don't hire folks using Dice.
* Move your own projects off sourceforge.
* If you need a project from sourceforge email them and ask them to avoid the download jacking by moving their project if possible
* Support other providers who play fair.
* If you use a website reputation tool, mark sf appropriately.
Sourceforge (Score:2)
You should be ashamed. An installer? Unfreekin believable.
An abomination.
very bad. Impressed Dice ran an anti-Dice article (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with most of what has been said.
As nasty as that is, I'm pleasantly surprised Slashdot (Dice) ran this. Somebody has character to approve this story. I hope it doesn't get them fired for telling the truth.
sourceforge is getting worse everytime I go there (Score:3)
I like to post detailed instructions on how to do things that include cut&pasteable commands (if anything, for my own sake), and since sourceforge removed direct download links to source files I have had to mirror them on my own servers just so that the instructions can be used. Sad. How many projects are now wasting their valuable time working around sourceforge's decisions?
Trust no more (Score:3)
Re:So Brave (Score:5, Insightful)
"Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent."
Then, have any of you (the editorial staff) thought to voice a complaint to your parent about being associated with what is widely considered a shady practice?
Re: (Score:2)
"Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent."
Then, have any of you (the editorial staff) thought to voice a complaint to your parent about being associated with what is widely considered a shady practice?
Posted again verbatim just in case they missed it the first time around. It is truly shady to pull this crap.
Re:So Brave (Score:4, Insightful)
They are publicising the situation, giving the community the chance to have their say. What's the problem? If I have a problem with my company's policies, I voice them internally and carry on doing my job. I don't publish them on a blog or the company's internet page.
Re:who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
GIMP can't do CMYK, so WHO CARES??
The majority of people that do graphics for web, not print?
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Paint.NET also does layers and is free for both private and commercial use. Yes, you must be running Windows but for all of us that do it's a huge step up from MS Paint in functionality, GIMP in usability and Photoshop in simplicity. I've found it to cover pretty much all my needs, those thing I'd like to do that I've found hard to do haven't been any easier in GIMP.
Re: (Score:3)
Or tinted layers with a volumizing mousse cut in an attractive bob.
Re:who cares (Score:5, Informative)
People who don't want to have to pay a monthly Photoshop bill care...
Re:who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
It does everything else with 100% cost savings. I'm not paying Adobe near a thousand bucks for 2 features (CMYK and 16bit depth), that I can get by using a few other open source odds and ends in conjunction with Gimp.
Re: (Score:2)
Even legitimate photoshop users never pay that much for it, unless you need the whole package with everything Adobe makes for corporate customers or whatever.
There's always a way to get it cheaper. When I bought it, it was via the discount you get when buying a wacom tablet, which you probably want anyway. The upgrade was like 350 or something from there...
Re:who cares (Score:4, Informative)
There are lots of other low cost pixel editors that compete with Photoshop. Since Adobe's moron move to the "Creative Cloud" (which may represent a state of mind among Adobe executives rather than a description of the system which is simply Software As A Service) thousands of photographers have been ditching PS. Corel's Paintshop Pro, while commercial software is less expensive than PS. Paintshop even does layers, 16 bit and CMYK output.
Re: (Score:3)
Since Adobe's moron move to the "Creative Cloud" (which may represent a state of mind among Adobe executives rather than a description of the system which is simply Software As A Service) thousands of photographers have been ditching PS. Corel's Paintshop Pro, while commercial software is less expensive than PS. Paintshop even does layers, 16 bit and CMYK output.
I have to question that. All previous DVD versions of CS thru CS6 continue to run as is with no additional money required. Only when you want new features beyond CS6 do you have to start with the Adobe monthly fee or move to an alternative. Like MSWord since probably Word 95, if not 6, PS has been so over-featured for most users that what more do you need that they haven't already thought of and included? So why would anyone dump an already paid-for program to learn a new one? My guess is that they're just
I do and so do millions of others (Score:2)
I used to use Adobe software until very recently, because my main usage for graphics software was editing my own photographs. I take photos with a proper camera that will use a data format that has more than 8 bits per pixel and does not have lossy compression in the device. Fortunately, darkroom is now good enough to use so I won't have to. If I ever should want to "photoshop" my photos, fortunately Gimp will have RAW support in the next release. To be honest, I haven't looked at CMYK yet, but I really hop
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I disagree. GIMP is way faster, you can run it from a portable usb drive without even needing to install anything, and requires far less memory resources. Photoshop is bloated with features that are unnecessary for most types of digital image editing, but still take up all of the same space.
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and doesn't seem to leave a user with any option to permanently bypass product registration, nagging the user every single time it starts up until they do.
You have a 6-digit slashdot ID.
I would think that someone with one would have been around the block long enough to know how to set up a disposable email account, like 10-minute-mail.
http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html [10minutemail.com]
You're welcome.
CS2 crashes frequently on Windows...
On what version? It runs just fine in FLP.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:2)
One should not have to do that in the first place... if I say that I do not want to register, I shouldn't be forced to always mean something like "remind me later".
Oh, and the version of Windows that I found CS2 always crashed on was XP.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, I am on Linux, and while I don't morally oppose using closed-source software, per se, I don't trust it for a tool, and I am morally opposed to most of the EULAs that such software tends to attach.
OTOH, for a game I see no reason to object to closed source software, but I still object to intrusive EULAs. (Reasonable terms are one thing, but abusive requirements are something totally else. If I can't install it, I'm not interested. And if there's a requirement that calling home is allowed, I want my
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It doesn't support tracking cookies.
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To Do: Add tracking cookie support to FTP.
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I truly hope they don't migrate to FTP only. Using it as their *canonical* download might be ok, but as plenty of other people have mentioned, FTP is a bit outdated. Really, if you're already migrating to a dedicated host, why not use HTTP? And put a BT link up for the majority of us with a client already installed.
(using BT as the sole source isn't really a good solution for folks who don't have admin rights to install a BT client, such as on my work box here)
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Though nowadays you just click on ftp:// [ftp]... link and get the right file right away. So I am not sure the file listing problem matters that much.
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Yeah, i doubt that something called the File Transfer Protocol even works these days : )
Side-note: They still offer an http download link about 50px left of the ftp one.
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I *do* care about Gimp, but I get it from Debian. These days I use SourceForge so rarely that I hadn't even heard about their new installer. But that *IS* a good reason to use it much less than before.