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SourceForge's Hottest Five Apps

Posted by kdawson on Thu Jun 21, 2007 09:28 AM
from the top-of-the-heap dept.
Software IT
davidmwilliams points us to his story up on IT Wire about the top five most active open source projects on SourceForge. (Sourceforge.net and Slashdot are both owned by SourceForge Inc.) He writes, "It explains what they do and why they're useful. Most of these will be new to most people but all are definitely bursting with potential."
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  • Well this is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Real Toad King (981874) <toadking@toadking.com> on Thursday June 21 2007, @09:38AM (#19594469) Homepage
    All they did was take the most active projects this week [sourceforge.net] and commented on them.

    What was the point in this?

  • Stellarium (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ajs (35943) <ajs AT ajs DOT com> on Thursday June 21 2007, @09:47AM (#19594625) Homepage Journal
    Stellarium is right up there with Celestia [shatters.net] for outstanding astro simulations. I use the two together when planning a night of stargazing or meteor watching in the mountains, and highly recommend them to anyone. Both have somewhat odd UIs to get used to, but it's one of the rare cases where the app itself is so uniquely useful that the UI is a secondary concern.

      • Re:Stellarium (Score:5, Informative)

        by ajs (35943) <ajs AT ajs DOT com> on Thursday June 21 2007, @02:07PM (#19598553) Homepage Journal

        I was really disapointed to find out that they are planning to migrate to a Qt-based interface instead of their current one or instead of using a more open toolkit such as GTK+.
        There's nothing "more open" about GTK+. Qt was a commercial toolkit with a semi-proprietary license many years ago, but has long been under the GPL [debian.org].

        This means that I will probably have to stop using it (or maintain a fork) because Qt is banned in my company.
        Banning the use of apps which utilize a certain toolkit (unless there's some financial or security impact from using that toolkit) is absurd. Find a new company.
  • SourceForge is too big now. If you start a project and have a support request--good luck getting it answered. Having fought with their CVS implementation for a few weeks, I abandoned sourceforge for GoogleCode. Much easier.
    • Not just that. They have about a million dead/junk projects, but those all still show up in the searches! Projects that have NO CODE show up in the searches! How the hell does that happen?

      As an example, search for "calendar". 2 of the first 3 returned have no code, and no website.

      • Re:SourceForge Too Big And Now Not Supported (Score:5, Funny)

        by Otter (3800) on Thursday June 21 2007, @10:12AM (#19595035) Journal
        As an example, search for "calendar". 2 of the first 3 returned have no code, and no website.

        Yes, we refer to those as "Outlook killers".

        Stellarium, by the way, is a superb piece of software and it's good to see it get attention even via a route as clueless as this article.

      • Re:SourceForge Too Big And Now Not Supported (Score:5, Informative)

        by _xeno_ (155264) on Thursday June 21 2007, @12:02PM (#19596777) Homepage Journal

        The problem is you can't cancel projects. I know I've got a few projects on SourceForge that I never intend to do anything with. One of them even has some code.

        In any case, I've long since lost both the password for that SourceForge account and no longer have access to the email address I used to create it, so those projects will remain forever, clogging up SourceForge despite the fact that they're long dead.

        I don't think SourceForge should just delete dead projects, but it would be nice if they'd move them into a "SourceForge Archive" or something after a project fails to see any activity or downloads for, say, a year. Leave them accessible, but stop returning them in searches unless a "search archives" option is set.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by jiriki (119865)
          Well there is: "Development Status : 7 - Inactive".
          This is probably exactly what you are searching for.

          (Won't help you with your login though...)

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by BlackFingolfin (517139)

          Sorry, but your spreading incorrect information here:

          First of, it *is* possible to cancel projects. In the admin section, there is a whole section dedicated specifically to "Project Removal". In addition, you can takeover existing orphaned projects, there is a support document explaining how.

          Secondly: If you lost your password or do not have access to your old email address anymore: They have a whole support document dealing just with that topic, too: .

          Finally, projects which never made any code rel

      • That's because the SourceForge CEO liked to give talks boasting about how many projects they hosted.

        Most of the dead projects ought to be moved to something like "SourceForge archive", where they remain as a historical record and are searchable, but can no longer be updated and are just static pages.

        • Hmmm. Maybe our little town could have avoided annexation by the big city next door if we could have counted the inhabitants of the local graveyards in our population.

          C'mon, SF, get it together. Dead is DEAD. A project with no activity and no ability to contact the principals needs to AT LEAST get "archived".

          Geesh. That's why I never search SF itself for anything; I take pointers from external sources like recent mail-list traffic. That way you know the project mentioned isn't merely dust and a bad smell.

    • Having fought with their CVS implementation for a few weeks

      I recently started a project [sourceforge.net] over at sourceforge and I think that what they provide is really great. They give you all kinds of features like forums, news, trackers, and web site statistics via RSS. They will host a web site to promote your project. That hosting includes the ability to run a web application written in perl and access to your own database on a MySql server. With that much capability, I implemented the project web site using the source code of the project itself.

      You also get ssh, sftp, and cvs (via ssh) access. I haven't run into any problems with updating the content. There is a web interface for downloading code but you have to use cvs for uploading. I don't know what problem the original poster was running into but I found no difficulties with it.

        • I guess that it doesn't really matter since you moved on but just in case anyone else is running into this, did you set the CVS_RSH environment variable to ssh? Also, there is no need to store your key at SF.

          I'm using a RHAT 9 machine when I connect. That might also make a difference.

  • SourceForge.net and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG [ostg.com].

    Also, this is neither news (let alone for nerds) or stuff that matters.

  • Go Azureus! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mattgreen (701203) on Thursday June 21 2007, @09:58AM (#19594785)
    Let me tell you, I've always wanted a Java P2P client. My biggest irk with uTorrent is it doesn't take up enough resources. Honestly, I can't believe the developers of uTorrent had the nerve to not put an entire plug-in architecture into it. They're totally missing the boat here.

    Besides, everyone KNOWS that the more design patterns you use, the better your program is!

    • Re:Go Azureus! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by twistedsymphony (956982) on Thursday June 21 2007, @10:52AM (#19595783) Homepage
      Despite your snaky cynicism (which is probably what got your the flamebait mod) I tend to agree with you sentiment. I ditched Azures months ago for uTorrent due mostly to it's unnecessary bloat. Are there even any worth while plug-ins for it?

      For the type of app that generally runs consistently in the background bloat is the last thing you want, similarly a pretty interface isn't all that necessary based on the amount of time most users will actually spend looking at it.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Silentknyght (1042778)
        I thought the benefit was that Azureus was blatantly open source, where you could (potentially) see the code and ensure that it wasn't doing anything shady. I've heard uTorrent slandered because it is not open and that the (new?) owner of uTorrent has some dubious associations with anti-P2P associations.
        • Funny you should mention the Open source aspect. I'm all for open source (I even make donations to several projects) but on more than one occasion I received tips from various sources to "not upgrade to the latest Azureus because of..." it seems that regularly people would slip trojans, viruses, spyware and other nasties into the official releases. It was enough make me turn off the auto-update feature and wait for the "all clear". Though I never really looked into any of those claims, it certainly made by

    • Re:Go Azureus! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Kalewa (561267) on Thursday June 21 2007, @10:53AM (#19595809)
      Tell me about it. I switched to uTorrent awhile ago and now all of my RAM is just...sitting around. It's not even doing anything. I mean come on, where's the bloated interface and memory leaks I'd become so accustomed to? Hell, I don't even have to change processor priority on uTorrent when I want to play a game. I want a program I have to maintain.

        • Since the summary says that it only run on Windows, I'm sure the virus writers are at your door to fulfill your request.

          Thanks to WINE, uTorrent is running on my Linux box at this very moment. And it's still using fewer resources than Azureus would...

  • Not for end user. (Score:3, Funny)

    by jshriverWVU (810740) on Thursday June 21 2007, @10:05AM (#19594881)
    I've only heard of 3 of these, and only used 2. The rest seem more geared toward businsess and not the end user.

    Would be nice to see a top 10 user geared list.

    • What do you mean "Not for end user"? Every project that's meant to be used is geared towards an end user. If a business uses it, the business is an end user. If the developers use it, they are the end users.

  • nothing new (Score:3, Informative)

    by asabjorn (903413) on Thursday June 21 2007, @10:38AM (#19595529)
    For me Datamations list was much more interesting since they spend time digging up new and upcoming projects I did not know about like kdenlive (kind of like the Diva video editor, but not a dead project). http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/ 3678071 [earthweb.com]

  • Gotta have Azureus! (Score:3, Funny)

    by shadowrat (1069614) on Thursday June 21 2007, @10:40AM (#19595553)

    "Azureus is the #1 application on SourceForge today. It needs little introduction and is both known and used throughout the world. "

    Well, that's all the information i need to know! Where do i sign up?

  • Is anybody using this in a production environment? I've been trying to get HP OpenView implimented and it is one big fat PITA. All I really need to do at this point is monitor server disk/partition usage. It would also be nice to inventory the network but that is a secondary objective. Any suggestions for an easy to use tool. Will Zenoss do it?

  • Most useful from SF (Score:3, Informative)

    by tkdtaylor (1039822) on Thursday June 21 2007, @10:49AM (#19595723)
    The one program I always download from SF is filezilla [sourceforge.net] (client) and recently I set up the server version to replace the broken default IIS FTP server.
    Both client and server are working great, highly recommended free open source FTP client and server.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by TClevenger (252206)
      Yup. My big three (that I put on any Windows machine I own) are:

      1. FileZilla. Great FTP and SFTP client.

      2. TUGZip. Excellent WinZip replacement.

      3. PDFCreator. Makes PDFs out of the output of any program with a "Print..." option.

  • From the article's explanation of Ajax:

    Google Earth is a web app. What makes it so snappy is Ajax.

    I've never actually used Google Earth, but I was under the impression that it does NOT run inside a web browser. So why would it use javascript? Maybe they meant to use Google Maps as an example?

  • No way. (Score:3, Funny)

    by thePowerOfGrayskull (905905) on Thursday June 21 2007, @05:32PM (#19601437) Homepage Journal
    This can't be a real web site. Where are the ugly colors, the Flash, the heavy graphics, for the gods' sakes, WHERE ARE THE ADS?!

    • Re:Its spam (Score:4, Insightful)

      by eebra82 (907996) on Thursday June 21 2007, @09:49AM (#19594667) Homepage
      Your problem is that you waste too much time bothering and then commenting. Yes, this news is sort of questionable but so is some news at CNN, CNet and other networks too.

      The trick is to waste as little time as possible per news item you do not find interesting. No one gives a shit if you stop visiting Slashdot. I know I will, because I really enjoy the service as it is.

      Perfection is an illusion.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dintech (998802)
      One word: Bandwidth.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by orra (1039354)
      When there are new releases of a Linux distro, lots of people want to try it out. Despite having lots of mirrors, projects can crumble.

      BitTorrent helps.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by pebs (654334)
      Wonder what percentage of the software downloaded via OSS P2P is actually Open Source itself?

      I guess you wouldn't necessarily need to download software via P2P if it was actually free to begin with.

      Granted, it is a smaller percentage, but in the case of Bittorrent it is being used more and more for legitimate software downloads. Bittorrent is really just another file transfer protocol that happens to be P2P. I download a lot of larger open source apps via P2P when I can because its generally faster, espec

    • Re:OSS P2P (Score:4, Informative)

      by LWATCDR (28044) on Thursday June 21 2007, @10:05AM (#19594885) Homepage Journal
      "I guess you wouldn't necessarily need to download software via P2P if it was actually free to begin with."
      Actually yes you do. Things like Linux ISOs are BIG. And not every distribution has the luxury of deep pockets for band width.
      Even distros like Fedora offer torrents of the ISOs the save bandwidth and to speed up downloads.
      I have only used bit torrent to download Linux ISOs.

    • Little confused over your question, but the #1 item on the list was Azureus which is a open source P2P application.

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