phpMyAdmin, the popular free and open source web based tool for administering MySQL databases, has left the SourceForge building.
In a blog post on Saturday, the project’s infrastructure coordinator, Michal Čihař, announced that a migration from Sourceforge is all but complete. The few remaining items left on the SourceForge server will be “hopefully handled in upcoming days as well.”
A popular web based application for administering MySQL databases, phpMyAdmin is the preferred tool of many webmasters for working with MySQL when used to power websites and is installed by default with most web hosting packages. The app can be used to perform a variety of tasks, including creating, modifying or deleting databases, tables, fields or rows; executing SQL statements; and managing users and permissions.
The migration was first announced on the phpMyAdmin website on July 2, with the announcement that downloads of the application would immediately be available on the project’s website instead of through SourceForge. “At same time, we’ve started to sign our releases with PGP,” the announcement stated. “Thanks to this, you can verify, that the downloaded tarball matches what our release manager did release.” The downloads are being handled through infrastructure supplied by CDN77, a content delivery network, which is now also handling distribution of the project website.
According to Čihař, there were a variety of reasons behind the move away from the code repository, not the least of which was SourceForge’s practice in recent years of including third party software offers bundled with FOSS downloads in the platform’s Windows’ installer.
“This was mostly motivated by issues with sf.net bundling crapware with installers (though we were not affected),” he wrote, “but also we’ve missed some features that we would like to have and were not possible there.”
This move away from SourceForge is yet another nail in the coffin of what was once the major hosting site for free and open source code. The exodus of major FOSS projects moving to GitHub and other options, began with GIMP in 2013, which moved due to the adware issue and also over concerns over deceptive “download here” ads on the website.
In June of this year, as more projects left the site, SourceForge generated controversy by commandeering the “abandoned” pages of projects that had moved elsewhere and resuming downloads complete with the third party software offers.
Čihař chose to take the high road, and in finishing his blog item gave a nod to the years of good service the project received from SourceForge: “Thanks to SourceForge.net, it has been great home for us, but now we have better places to live.”
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Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
SourceForge is in a losing battle here. They need revenue alright, but the further they go to that they’ll lose some of the OpenSource crowd.
As for my own exprience, spotty downloads, or failed completely.