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GIMP project's official statement on SourceForge's actions

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GIMP project's official statement on SourceForge's actions Michael Schumacher 31 May 21:15
  GIMP project's official statement on SourceForge's actions Simone Karin Lehmann 07 Jun 17:38
   GIMP project's official statement on SourceForge's actions Øyvind Kolås 07 Jun 18:19
   GIMP project's official statement on SourceForge's actions Jehan Pagès 09 Jun 09:59
Michael Schumacher
2015-05-31 21:15:16 UTC (almost 9 years ago)

GIMP project's official statement on SourceForge's actions

This is the GIMP project's official statement on SourceForge's actions[1] in regard to "abandoned" projects on their service.

We are fully aware that since their launch in 1999, SourceForge had been providing a valuable service to the Free Software community and that this service may still be relevant to some Free and Open Source Software projects today.

The GIMP project did benefit from this service: SourceForge was the place to download the Windows installer for GIMP for many years and we appreciate it as an important part of GIMP history.

When it comes to distributing GIMP, our goal is to make it as easy as possible for users to install GIMP.
We do not want our users having to dodge any "offers" or to worry about possibly installing malware in the process.

With our shared history, it was painful to watch the invasion of the big green "Download" button ads appearing on the SourceForge site. Our decision to move the Windows installers away from SourceForge in 2013 was a direct result of how its service degraded in this respect.

The situation became worse recently when SourceForge started to wrap its downloader/installer around the GIMP project binaries. That SourceForge installer put other software apart from GIMP on our users' systems. This was done without our knowledge and permission, and we would never have permitted it. It was done in spite of the following promise made by SourceForge in November 2013 [2]:

"we want to reassure you that we will NEVER bundle offers with any project without the developers consent." (emphasis in original)

To us, this firmly places SourceForge among the dodgy crowd of download sites.
SourceForge are abusing the trust that we and our users had put into their service in the past.

We don't believe that this is a fixable situation. Even if they promise to adhere to the set of guidelines outlined below, these promises are likely to become worthless with any upcoming management change at SourceForge.

However, if SourceForge's current management are willing to collaborate with us on these matters, then there might be a reduction in the damage and feeling of betrayal among the Free and Open Source Software communities.

An acceptable approach would be to provide a method for *any* project to cease hosting at any SourceForge site if desired, including the ability to:

* completely remove the project and URLs permanently, and not allow any other projects to take its place

* remove any hosted files from the service, and not maintain mirrors serving installers or files differing from those provided by the project or wrap those in any way

* provide permanent HTTP redirects (301) to any other location as desired by the project

This is not unreasonable to expect from a service that purports to support the free software community.

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20150529094757/https://sourceforge.net/blog/gimp-win-project-wasnt-hijacked-just-abandoned/

[2] http://web.archive.org/web/20131115022447/http://sourceforge.net/blog/advertising-bundling-community-and-criticism/

Regards,
Michael
GPG: 96A8 B38A 728A 577D 724D 60E5 F855 53EC B36D 4CDD
Simone Karin Lehmann
2015-06-07 17:38:25 UTC (almost 9 years ago)

GIMP project's official statement on SourceForge's actions

Hi,

please don’t get me wrong, I don’t like software bundled with adware, toolbars or anything like that.

But...

An acceptable approach would be to provide a method for *any* project to cease hosting at any SourceForge site if desired, including the ability to:

* completely remove the project and URLs permanently, and not allow any other projects to take its place

* remove any hosted files from the service, and not maintain mirrors serving installers or files differing from those provided by the project or wrap those in any way

* provide permanent HTTP redirects (301) to any other location as desired by the project

… how do these statements comply to the GPL?

Doesn’t the GPL give everybody the rights to redistribute GPL’ed software in binary form as long as they fulfill the other requirements (providing source code)?

IMO, claiming not to set up a mirror with GPL’ed software for redistribution and not allowing other projects to redistribute GPL’ed software is AFAIK not compliant with the GPL. Even bundling GPL’ed software with proprietary software is possible as long as its not linked against GPL’ed libs.

So how can a project which develops and publishes GPL’ed software ask somebody to give up the rights the GPL grants?

Or am I missing the point?

Regards Simone Karin

Øyvind Kolås
2015-06-07 18:19:28 UTC (almost 9 years ago)

GIMP project's official statement on SourceForge's actions

On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 7:38 PM, Simone Karin Lehmann wrote:

So how can a project which develops and publishes GPL’ed software ask somebody to give up the rights the GPL grants?

Or am I missing the point?

These are not demands being made because of the GPL, but additional expectations to be had of a service purporting to be a friendly host towards open source and free software projects.

In my opinion, places where short term profits and something “not being illegal” is sufficient motivation to do business developments – places like the win32 platform with misleading ads, trojaned installers and malicious download helpers like SourceForge provide(s/d) is an argument to avoid affiliation with them in the future for both GIMP and other projects.

GIMP already has a presence on the win32 and it is in the GIMP projects interest to try helping shield operators of GIMP on the platform from being harmed by these problems as well as to protect the name and reputation of GIMP.

/Øyvind Kolås

Jehan Pagès
2015-06-09 09:59:56 UTC (almost 9 years ago)

GIMP project's official statement on SourceForge's actions

Hi,

On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 7:38 PM, Simone Karin Lehmann wrote:

Hi,

please don’t get me wrong, I don’t like software bundled with adware, toolbars or anything like that.

But...

An acceptable approach would be to provide a method for *any* project to cease hosting at any SourceForge site if desired, including the ability to:

* completely remove the project and URLs permanently, and not allow any other projects to take its place

* remove any hosted files from the service, and not maintain mirrors serving installers or files differing from those provided by the project or wrap those in any way

* provide permanent HTTP redirects (301) to any other location as desired by the project

… how do these statements comply to the GPL?

Doesn’t the GPL give everybody the rights to redistribute GPL’ed software in binary form as long as they fulfill the other requirements (providing source code)?

IMO, claiming not to set up a mirror with GPL’ed software for redistribution and not allowing other projects to redistribute GPL’ed software is AFAIK not compliant with the GPL. Even bundling GPL’ed software with proprietary software is possible as long as its not linked against GPL’ed libs.

So how can a project which develops and publishes GPL’ed software ask somebody to give up the rights the GPL grants?

Or am I missing the point?

I would think so. Pippin already answered, but I will also add that additionnally to Sourceforge claiming to be friend of FLOSS, there is also the fact that they are reusing the GIMP project that the upstream used to have, after basically throwing out its owner (Jernej, officially as a member of the team).

Imagine you had a blog or an account on whatever online service/social network you want. You say stuff in your name, have a profile photo showing your face, and the account has your name on it. Some day, you stop using it because the online service conditions don't suit you. But you are famous so the online service decides to throw you out of your own blog, keep your name on the top, as well as your profile photo, and start making blog posts saying insanities. Of course it would be written somewhere (in small) that now this is not you who post and the online service company would claim that they are fan of your work, your blog was abandonned, and they therefore just wanted to continue inform people around about your whereabouts. But in the end, thousands of outdated links (exact same URL!) everywhere would still point to this blog as yours and people would still go there thinking they are reading things from you (things you may actually not agree with) while the service would still make a big profit from your name.

Well same as you could hardly argue that this online blog service was just making a fan website, what did Sourceforge could hardly be considered as just making a mirror of GIMP. And that's our main issue there. They are using GIMP notoriety and misleading people, and distributing unwanted adwares with GIMP name (and years of web history pointing there) by doing so.

Jehan

Regards
Simone Karin

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