Sourceforge...

[heeb]

Hi all,

I would like to suggest Lazarus and FreePascal move away from Sourceforge and be hosted somewhere else.

Here are a few discussion threads on reddit about Sourceforge no longer being the friendly Open Source hosting site it once was:

* www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1jk1gz/sourceforge_starts_using_enhanced_adware/

* http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1kxuul/beware_of_sourceforge_downloads_new_owner_is/

* http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1kyb5t/sourceforge_now_serving_up_adwaremalware_when/

* http://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/1jk1w9/sourceforge_starts_using_enhanced_adware/

Even if the Lazarus / FreePascal installers hosted on Sourceforge don’t come bundled with any adware, I would say the Sourceforge name is forever tainted and can never inspire trust anymore. Do Lazarus / FreePascal want to be involved with a site that has gone down this route?

[BigChimp]

Do you have suggestions for an alternate hosting site?

[Martin_fr]

Alternative download links (mirrors) are given in every release announcement.

There are also downloads from other trust-able 3rld party sites, such as: http://www.heise.de/download/lazarus-1159651.html

[heeb]

Alternative download links (mirrors) are given in every release announcement.

There are also downloads from other trust-able 3rld party sites, such as: http://www.heise.de/download/lazarus-1159651.html

Yes, I understand that. My point is not that I don’t trust the Lazarus binaries any more. My point is that Sourceforge itself is going downhill fast, and that (new) users might be wary of Lazarus as a result of it being hosted on a site that has now an increasingly bad name. Would you e.g. want Lazarus to be downloadable from CNet, bundled together with adware? Sourceforge is going down the CNet route.

I would suggest looking into BitBucket, or GitHub. As I understand it, on both sites one can host both the source code (that’s their main goal) and binary releases.

[taazz]

to much noise for no reason, as far as I have seen it is left to the developers to use the new adware behavior or not (at least for now) this means that the filezila developers selected to use ask.com as their installer / distributor. There is no reason to distrust Lazarus or SF at this point yet but it would be wise to have a couple of alternatives to avoid police changes that will force something like that on all projects.

[jwdietrich]

to much noise for no reason, as far as I have seen it is left to the developers to use the new adware behavior or not (at least for now) this means that the filezila developers selected to use ask.com as their installer / distributor. There is no reason to distrust Lazarus or SF at this point yet but it would be wise to have a couple of alternatives to avoid police changes that will force something like that on all projects.

I agree. Sourceforge isn't that bad. I have initiated several projects that are hosted at SF, and I don't have reason to complain, the less as there are many options for configuring. The only source of annoyance may be the ads on SourceForge's websites, but SF does definitively not bundle code or binaries with adware.

It may, however, be a good idea anyway to mirror the Lazarus and FPC packages at a second site, not as a substitution but as a complement to SourceForge, in order to increase security and to offer an alternative download-option for people living in certain countries that are banned from downloading from an US-based provider. A possible good option is Berlios. There is already an entry for Lazarus at http://sourcewell.berlios.de/appbyid.php?id=5835, but currently no files are hosted at http://developer.berlios.de.

[Mike.Cornflake]

Alternative download links (mirrors) are given in every release announcement.

There are also downloads from other trust-able 3rld party sites, such as: http://www.heise.de/download/lazarus-1159651.html

Thanks Martin, appreciate the info :-)

Here's another..
http://wiki.freepascal.org/git_mirrors