SourceForge pretty much failed where GitHub strived though. For all practical pu...

stevekemp · on Feb 2, 2017

While I can't disagree that sourceforge failed, it was definitely more than a mere code-host.

Sourceforge had integrated mailing-list support, bug trackers, page-hosting, and more.

There was a community there, it was just that each community was based around a particular project. There was little chance of a user of project A from interesting with project B. But I guess the same could be said of github.

Sourceforge failed in part because of feature-creep, and availability issues. But I think it would be unfair to say that it wasn't "social".

flukus · on Feb 2, 2017

I know the execution was a lot better with github, but what did it really add that source forge, google code, etc didn't do? They all had bug trackers, mailing lists, etc.

will_hughes · on Feb 2, 2017

The killer feature is stupid easy forking and sending pull requests with the one interface.

Found some tiny project that does almost everything you want, but has a tiny feature you can implement easy? No worries, fork, add it.

Even if it's never pushed upstream, it's easy for someone to find and perhaps use themselves.

I do this with things like zabbix templates/scripts and docker containers that are 99% what I want.

Previously there was no easy way to do this - I'd have to set up an entirely new sourceforge/google code/etc account, which is a lot more effort.

flukus · on Feb 2, 2017

> The killer feature is stupid easy forking and sending pull requests with the one interface.

That's the part that wasn't really possible before git though. But you could always do an anonymous checkout and make your changes there,you could even do a pull request (via a patch). There was no need to signup for that, even though most of us had a source forge account (I still do) anyway.