SourceForge has lost its common sense

For long time the SourceForge was one of the most trusted open source projects repositories, where one could go to download the latest versions of numerous useful applications. They were a site safe from influence of various shady commercial interests, providing the installers and binaries as they are built by the project developers.

Few days ago it was announced on several technical sites that SourceForge has changed its business practice, and that it had went the CNET’s download.com way: they now repackage original installers into their own wrapper installers that (beside starting the contained original installer of the application one is interested in) perform drive-by installations of various cr*pware (adware, shareware, etc).

Following articles illustrate what is know about that change at this moment:

• “SourceForge commits reputational suicide” by Simon Phipps (InfoWorld; 2015.06.03) – http://www.infoworld.com/article/2929732/open-source-software/sourceforge-commits-reputational-suicide.html
• “nmap Maintainer Warns He Doesn’t Control nmap SourceForge Mirror” (SlashDot; 2015.06.03) – http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/06/03/126224/nmap-maintainer-warns-he-doesnt-control-nmap-sourceforge-mirror
• “Black “mirror”: SourceForge has now taken over Nmap audit tool project [Updated]” by Sean Gallagher (ArsTechnica; 2015.06.03) – http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/black-mirror-sourceforge-has-now-siezed-nmap-audit-tool-project/
  • VLC developer also surprised to find project taken over by SourceForge without notice.
• “Sourceforge Hijacks the Nmap Sourceforge Account” by Gordon Lyon [aka Fodor] – http://seclists.org/nmap-dev/2015/q2/194M
• “SourceForge and GIMP [Updated]” (SlashDot; 2015.06.01) – http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/06/01/1241231/sourceforge-and-gimp-updated
• “SD Times Blog: SourceForge now a source of malware” by Alex Handy (SD Times; 2015.03.19) – http://sdtimes.com/sd-times-blog-sourceforge-now-a-source-of-malware/
• “What happened to Sourceforge?” (etix’s weblog; 2015.06.02) – https://blog.l0cal.com/2015/06/02/what-happened-to-sourceforge/
• “SourceForge locked in projects of fleeing users, cashed in on malvertising [Updated]” by Sean Gallagher (ArsTechnica; 2015.06.01) – http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/sourceforge-locked-in-projects-of-fleeing-users-cashed-in-on-malvertising/
  • “Hotel California” of code repositories lets you check out, but you can never leave.

---

An afterthought: The same company that owns SourceForge is also owner of SlashDot discussion forum/site. So, I expect that they will go down the drain soon, too.

---

Update: Apparently this is going on for some time now:

• “How far the once mighty SourceForge has fallen…” by Justin Clift (at Gluster community; 2013.08.22) – http://blog.gluster.org/2013/08/how-far-the-once-mighty-sourceforge-has-fallen/

---

Related: “C|Net’s Download.Com trojans” – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/cnets-download-com-trojans/

Knowledge management

Knowledge bases: Wikies, etc.

• WikiPatterns – http://www.wikipatterns.com/display/wikipatterns/Wikipatterns

Tools:

• wxWikiServer = WikiServer – http://sourceforge.net/projects/wikiserver/ – win32-based; unzip it and run it – it is that easy. Great portable application. Limited in features, but ease of installation makes it my current favorite.:
  • Point you browser to the URL http://localhost:80/ and start working.
  • to customize/change the port number, edit the wikiserver.ini file
  • to change the pages layout edit the PageTemplate.html file in the Pages subdirectory.
  • to change the default icon, place the desired image in the images/ directory, and change the PageTemplate.html file to include following:

    <img style="border:0;" src="images/FILENAME.png" alt="WIKINAME">...

• TiddlyWiki – http://www.tiddlywiki.com/ – all-in-one-HTML file Javascript-based wiki engine. Wonder in itself. Great portable application.:
  • http://tiddlywiki.com/ | http://tiddlywiki.org/ | http://tiddlywiki.org/wiki/Main_Page
  • TiddlyWiki Guides – http://tiddlywikiguides.org/
  • @WikiPedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiddlyWiki
  • @WikiBooks – http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/TiddlyWiki
  • Forum(s) – https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/TiddlyWiki
  • GTDtiddlywiki – http://shared.snapgrid.com/gtd_tiddlywiki.htm
  • LaTeX (-enabled) Tiddly Wiki – http://bob.mcelrath.org/tiddlyjsmath-2.0.3.html
• Kwiki – http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/dist/Kwiki
  • free Perl based. Requires Apache and Perl. Pain to set up (although nothing compared to various PHP-based or Java-based monsters like MediaWiki or Confluence). I do not use it anymore.
• WikiTaxi – http://www.yunqa.de/delphi/doku.php/products/wikitaxi/index; [win32; Delphi] – an offline wiki engine to be used as the mirror of WikiPedia.
  • WikiPedia dumps – http://dumps.wikimedia.org/simplewiki/latest/
  • WikiPedia backups – ,a href=”http://dumps.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html”>http://dumps.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html
• Loss of functionality of Confluence: since version 4.x.x Confluence does not support wiki markup editing. partial workarounds are Wiki Plugin for Confluence (https://bobswift.atlassian.net/wiki/display/CWP/Wiki+Plugin+for+Confluence) and Confluence Source Editor (https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.atlassian.confluence.plugins.editor.confluence-source-editor).
• XWiki – http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome – a Confluence-like, free, supports original Confluence Markup.
• NoteStudio, by DogMelon Studio – http://www.dogmelon.com.au/ns/index.shtm – a personal wiki. Has templates for GtD. Encryption, network sharing, XML for input/export, and free upgrades. $50US.

Mind maps, Concept maps, Concept networks

General:

• at WikiPedai:
  • Mind Maps – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_maps
  • “List of concept mapping and mind mapping software” (WikiPedia) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concept_mapping_and_mind_mapping_software | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mind_mapping_software
  • Ishikawa diagram – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishikawa_diagrams
  • Tree diagram – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_diagram
  • Organizational chart – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_chart
• a website dedicated to mindmapping and information organisation – http://www.mind-mapping.org/
• MichaelOnMindMapping – http://www.michaelonmindmapping.com/
• The Mindmap Blog – http://mindmapblog.com/
• The BiggerPlate mind map library – http://www.biggerplate.com/mindmap-library
• The MidMapSoftwareBlog – http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/
• Mindmapping everywhere (blog) – http://mindmappingeverywhere.blogspot.com/

Mind-mapping tools:

• FreeMind – http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page – free, Java-based concept-mapping desktop tool [FREE, OSS]
  • at WikiPedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeMind
• Freeplane – an fork of Freemind – http://freeplane.sourceforge.net/ [FREE]
  • SourceForge – http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeplane/>/li>
  • Home page – http://freeplane.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
  • Relation to Freemind – http://freeplane.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Relationship_to_FreeMind
  • “Freeplane pushing for visibility” – http://www.mind-mapping.org/blog/2009/06/freeplane-pushing-for-visibility/
  • “New open-source mind mapping program Freeplane off to a promising start” by Chuck Frey (The MindMappingSoftwareBlog; 2009.09.04) – http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/freeplane/
  • “New Mind Mapping App Freeplane Promises Great Features, Rapid Release Cycle” by Lisa Hoover (OSTATIC; 2009.09.04) – http://ostatic.com/blog/new-mind-mapping-app-freeplane-promises-great-features-rapid-release-cycle
  • at WikiPedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeplane
  • Add-ons – http://freeplane.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Add-ons
  • Freeplane|GTD (Freeplane GTD add-on) – http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeplanegtd/
• XMind – http://www.xmind.net/ – another free mind maps tool [FREE]
  • Project pages at SourceForge – http://sourceforge.net/projects/xmind3/
  • Project pages at Google source – http://code.google.com/p/xmind3/
  • WikiPedia page – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMIND
  • XMind User Forum – http://groups.google.com/group/xmind
  • XMind blog – http://blog.xmind.net/en/
• BooguNote – A Treeview Notebook – http://www.boogu.me/ – Organize your info in new concept tree view
  • Google group – https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/boogunote_en
• semAuth – http://semauth.sourceforge.net/ | http://sourceforge.net/projects/semauth/ – semAuth is an xslt script which translates a freemind mindmap into a website (i.e. set of xhtml pages).
• iMindMap – http://www.thinkbuzan.com/us/ [COMMERCIAL]
  • iMindMap Basic – a free basic version –
  • iMindMap Online –
  • “iMindMap Version 4 – Why I Insulted The Buzan Online CEO?” (MichaelOnMindMapping.com) – http://www.michaelonmindmapping.com/blog/mind-maps/imindmap-version-4-is-it-any-good-and-should-you-bother/
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzan%27s_iMindMap
  • “iMindmap 5 Takes It to the Next Level” (The Mindmap Blog; 2011.02.04) – http://mindmapblog.com/?tag=imindmap-5
  • “iMindMap 5, new online collaboration tool announced by ThinkBuzan” by Chuck Frey (2011.01.14) – http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/imindmap-5/
  • iMindMap 5 (Mindmapping everywhere) – http://mindmappingeverywhere.blogspot.com/2011/03/imindmap-5.html
  • “iMindMap 5 launches with a goal of taking care of business” by Chuck Frey (The MindMappingSoftwareBlog.com; 2011.04.15) – http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/imindmap-5-launched/
• WiseMapping – http://www.wisemapping.com/ – online service holding your mind maps [FREE]
• VUE (Visual Understanding Environment) – http://vue.tufts.edu/index.cfm
• Gallery of VUE maps – http://vue.tufts.edu/gallery/index.cfm
• Mind Mapping With VUE – http://poelcat.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/mind-mapping-with-vue/
• VUE: mind mapping software that combines data visualization, semantic analysis, and a full-fledged Powerpoint-style presentation engine in one – http://www.freewaregenius.com/2010/01/11/vue-mind-mapping-software-that-combines-data-visualization-semantic-analysis-and-a-full-fledged-powerpoint-style-presentation-engine-in-one/
• SciPlore – http://www.sciplore.org/software/sciplore_mindmapping/ – a fork of FreeMind;
  • “How to write a thesis (Bachelor, Master, or PhD) and which software tools to use” – http://sciplore.org/blog/2010/03/02/how-to-write-a-phd-thesis/
  • at WikiPedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SciPlore_MindMapping
• MindManager – http://www.mindjet.com/us/; [COMMERCIAL] – (expensive) concept-mapping desktop tool
• MindMeister – http://www.mindmeister.com/ – online concept-mapper. Has a basic/free offer.
• MindOmo – http://www.mindomo.com/ – online concept-mapper. Has a basic/free offer.
• Bubbl.Us – http://bubbl.us/ – online concept-mapper. Free.

The only concept networking tool that I know about is:

• Brain – http://www.thebrain.com/ – commercial concept-networking desktop tool. Has “personal” (free), “core”, “pro” and “enterprise” editions. | blog: http://blog.thebrain.com/ | http://sociate.thebrain.com/brainekp/
  • at WikiPedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PersonalBrain

Brainstorming

• BrainStorm – http://www.brainstormsw.com/ – commercial (£20)

Misc:

• Article “Do’s and don’ts for managing IT projects with wikis” by Ephraim Schwartz (InfoWorld; 2008.09.03) – http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/09/03/36NF-wiki-enterprise-tips_1.html

Process management

• GTD (Getting Things Done) – http://www.davidco.com/ – a very popular (probably more popular that it deserves) time management system:
  • Wikipedia article – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTD
  • GTD Times blog – http://www.gtdtimes.com/

Tools

• ThinkingRock – http://www.thinkingrock.com.au/ – free Java-based desktop tool implementing GTD
• AutoHotkey – http://www.autohotkey.com/ – an open-source utility can automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write macros by hand or use the macro recorder.:
  • Forums – http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/.
  • “Hack Attack: Knock down repetitive email with AutoHotKey” – http://lifehacker.com/software/keyboard-shortcuts/hack-attack-knock-down-repetitive-email-with-autohotkey-159785.php
  • “10 Ways to Use AutoHotKey to Rock Your Keyboard” – http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/10-ways-to-use-autohotkey-to-rock-your-keyboard.html
  • “Automating Windows with AutoHotkey” – http://www.nothickmanuals.info/doku.php/articles:autohotkey/ [GONE] –> http://web.archive.org/web/20080617142012/http://nothickmanuals.info/doku.php/articles:autohotkey
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autohotkey/
  • an online repository for AutoHotkey scripts – http://www.autohotkey.net/
• ClickWhen –
  • “Automate timed mouse clicks with ClickWhen” (LifeHacker)- http://lifehacker.com/software/exclusive-lifehacker-download/automate-timed-mouse-clicks-with-clickwhen-260445.php
• Rocker –
  • “Navigate backward and forward with Rocker” (LifeHacker)- http://lifehacker.com/software/exclusive-lifehacker-download-for-windows/navigate-backward-and-forward-with-rocker-257609.php – …Rocker is a mouse navigation tool that lets you perform common tasks, like moving forward and backward in your browser, by simply rocking your fingers across your left and right mouse buttons.…
• Texter –
  • “Lifehacker Code: Texter (Windows)” (LifeHacker) – http://lifehacker.com/238306/lifehacker-code-texter-windows – a text substitution tool [WIN32 only]
• ActiveWords – http://activewords.com/
  • “Save time with text substitution” (LifeHacker) – http://lifehacker.com/software/feature/save-time-with-text-substitution-162484.php
• KeyBreeze – http://www.keybreeze.com/ – personal use is free, commercial use requires purchasing
• TaksJuggler – http://taskjuggler.org/ – an open-source project management tool. Free. For *nix platforms only.
• Gantt project – http://www.ganttproject.biz/ – a cross-platform desktop tool for project scheduling and management. Allows work with Gantt charts, PERT charts, etc. [FREE, OSS]

Blogs

After years of trying various blog-like tools, in my opinion, the blogs are not a good tool for knowledge management. A blog-like interface may be useful as an additional “view” of the knowledge bases (e.g. wikies), for example to keep users informed on the changes to the knowledge base.

Tagging, Labeling, Categorizing, etc.

Nothing to see here ….

PIMs (Personal Information Managers)

• Zoot – http://www.zootsoftware.com/
• Evernote – https://evernote.com/ – an online PIM
  • Evernote Clearly – https://evernote.com/clearly/ | FireFox extension – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/clearly/ – makes blog posts, articles and webpages clean and easy to read. Save them to Evernote to read anywhere.
  • Evernote Web Clipper – https://evernote.com/webclipper/ | FireFox extension – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/evernote-web-clipper/ – save things you see on the web into your Evernote account. It provides a toolbar button and context menu to add an article, selection, URL or an entire page.

---

Related here at this blog: personall wikies – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/personal-wikis/ | Issue mapping, Dialog mapping – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/10/29/issue-mapping-dialog-mapping/ | Productivity – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/productivity/ | Skills – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/skils/

Download sites

Download sites:

• FOS (Free and Open Source):
  • SourceForge – http://sourceforge.net/
  • FreshMeat: http://freshmeat.net/
  • http://opensource.org/
• PCWorld downloads library – http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/downloads.html
• CNET downloads – http://download.cnet.com/
• PC Utilities Magazine – http://www.magnesiummedia.com/pcutilities/
• Tucows – http://www.tucows.com/
• SnapFiles – http://www.snapfiles.com/
• Simtel – http://www.simtel.net/
• http://www.magnesiummedia.com/pcutilities/
• http://www.filehippo.com/
• Old versions of various software: http://www.oldversion.com/
• Old applications: http://oldapps.com/
• Code samples from O’Reilly’s books – http://oreilly.com/store/complete.html
• Fresh ports – FreeBSD software – http://www.freshports.org/

File sharing sites:

• RapidShare: http://www.rapidshare.com/ | http://rapidshare.de/
• DepositFiles: http://depositfiles.com/
• Uploading: http://uploading.com
• Hotfile: http:// hotfile.com
• MediaFire: http://www.mediafire.com/
• 4Shared – http://www.4shared.com/

Books and other textual material:

• Scribd – http://www.scribd.com/
• EBookEE: http://www.ebookee.com/
• AvaxHome: http://avaxhome.ws/
• many books links at this blog: Books online – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/books-online/