2014-02-14-002-project#Move project to sourceforge

In an effort to improve current project documentation (and later moving the project code), I suggest moving to Sourceforge.

Acording to h t t p ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open-source_software_hosting_facilities it seems to be one of the best (most complete) alternatives, including GIT, Wiki, forums...

My proposal is to start writing the documentation there, creating a new forum and use the platform after needed discussions.

As per my reply to your post on the misc. thread, please provide some more details on why you think this is a good idea. Github already has a wiki (which we currently have disabled to avoid duplication), and we could potentially use issues as an alternative to the forums (I'm not suggesting that's a good idea, as it's not what they're intended to do), so what does sourceforge offer beyond that, and why is that worth the effort of moving all the content we currently have here, on the wiki and on github?

Your addressing a lot of valid points (we need to get the wiki up to date, we could do with better integrating the forums, wiki and repo), but simply suggesting we start from scratch on a new platform is asking a lot when the benefits over what we have are marginal anyway.

If you have experience of using sourceforge, or some other platform, and can give specific reasons you think it'd benefit us, then great, we can discuss those and consider making some changes. If not, then there's a lot of people here with experience of using what we have right now, and our effort would be better spent improving how we do that than moving somewhere new.

Just straight up feature count, it is 10 features to 10 features with sourceforge vs github, so I'm not sure what you mean with more complete

We don't really need a second forum or wiki, are there any advantages to using sourceforges versions?

The github feature of private/personal branches we use such that new people can create their own version of Thrive and make any changes they want without messing anything up on the official github. People can still create branches and have them merged with the official repository through pull requests. Giving everyone access to the official github or not letting people do any contributions without having first proven themselves both seem like bad alternatives. How does sourceforge handle this?

As seregon mentioned you'll have to give more reasons to put the work into moving to sourceforge

Seregon wrote:

As per my reply to your post on the misc. thread, please provide some more details on why you think this is a good idea.  Github already has a wiki (which we currently have disabled to avoid duplication), and we could potentially use issues as an alternative to the forums (I'm not suggesting that's a good idea, as it's not what they're intended to do), so what does sourceforge offer beyond that, and why is that worth the effort of moving all the content we currently have here, on the wiki and on github?

The reason why I suggested sourceforge were: GIT, WIKI, FORUM, altough I miss code review (will it be added in the future?)
Reason not to use github: missed forums (you are right: issues could be used), maillist and shell server, but could be a valid option also.
The reason to move out from here: easy of administration, centralized information, phpBB forums are much more exploited, this forums is in serious need of cleaning...
(In other words: to get out of HERE)

As suggested before, if its possible to grant permissions on a space/page basis on github wiki, i offer myself to start cleaning things.

Seregon wrote:

Your addressing a lot of valid points (we need to get the wiki up to date, we could do with better integrating the forums, wiki and repo), but simply suggesting we start from scratch on a new platform is asking a lot when the benefits over what we have are marginal anyway.

Not starting from the scratch, but reviewing as much as we can to have an up-2-date documentation, while keeping this organized for the future.

Seregon wrote:

If you have experience of using sourceforge, or some other platform, and can give specific reasons you think it'd benefit us, then great, we can discuss those and consider making some changes.  If not, then there's a lot of people here with experience of using what we have right now, and our effort would be better spent improving how we do that than moving somewhere new.

You can replace sourceforge with github, if you feel better with that.
IMHO, current forum is a mess and wiki need some cleaning/organization to make it simple/faster to find information.

crovea wrote:

Just straight up feature count, it is 10 features to 10 features with sourceforge vs github, so I'm not sure what you mean with more complete

Please, read again my proposal: "seems to be one of the best (most complete)". Ang github is 9, if you "properly count"

crovea wrote:

We don't really need a second forum or wiki, are there any advantages to using sourceforges versions?

As previously said: moving out from phpBB and having an up-2-date well organized documentation.

crovea wrote:

The github feature of private/personal branches we use such that new people can create their own version of Thrive and make any changes they want without messing anything up on the official github. People can still create branches and have them merged with the official repository through pull requests. Giving everyone access to the official github or not letting people do any contributions without having first proven themselves both seem like bad alternatives. How does sourceforge handle this?

I't doesnt. You can have your traditional local copy, not private branches.
I more or less agree with you it could be a great extra for sourceforge (if they have it)

crovea wrote:

As seregon mentioned you'll have to give more reasons to put the work into moving to sourceforge

At least the discussion is taking place
Please, check if replacing sourceforge with github and forum with issues suits you.

darwin.the.gamer wrote:

altough I miss code review

This is incredibly important, and we have been utilizing this highly. It's also one of the main benefits of me being on the project as it gives me a great tool for developing myself as a programmer and a computer scientist in general. As far as I can tell, github is the only platform offering the pull requests style we use.

darwin.the.gamer wrote:

maillist and shell server

The github newsfeed is great and I would not replace it with a mailing list, however I can't speak for others. Looking into the details of a Shell server, I find that it could certainly be useful for some of the more advanced git-related commands so thats a plus, but i haven't yet seen it be necessary by any means.

darwin.the.gamer wrote:

As previously said: moving out from phpBB and having an up-2-date well organized documentation.

I'm not particulairly attached to the current forum structure, so I wouldn't be opposed to a change IF it is worth the hazzle (however, I'm relatively new still and there are a lot of higher up people that would need to chime in). Regarding documentation, if you compile the project yourself, you will find up to date documentation on the code, everything not directly related to the code belongs in the wiki which i feel is a seperate issue.

darwin.the.gamer wrote:

Please, check if replacing sourceforge with github and forum with issues suits you.

At your request i made some more research into the relative advantages and disadvantages of the two and it seems there is a general consensus that github is the better choice, mainly due to the submission process (pull requests and personal brances). If you can find some noteworthy articles with the opposite viewpoint I'll check them out!
I would never replace a forum with github issues (am I misunderstanding you?). The github issues are meant and made for code or atleast concrete tasks and we make great use of them that way. Huge amounts of additional clutter would be damaging.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4093181/where-to-host-an-open-source-project-codeplex-google-code-sourceforge
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14671744/sourceforge-vs-github
http://www.biostars.org/p/7899/

For the sake of brevity, here's my response:

• Github seems to be the best choice. My proposal is to move everything there (and escape from the wiki, but specially from this forum).
  
• I still consider Github issues a valid alternative to forum, cause they can be easily tagged and categorized. They have an id also, so they can be easily linked on the wiki. Please, reconsider. Maybe we could create a project and test?
  
• IMHO wiki needs some cleaning. Perhaps some summary pages linking to more detailed ones. As I asked/proposed before, if someone grant me permissions, i could start working on a draft on a separate page. And if you like it, then use it.
  

Regards

EDIT:
I have tested github issues and fits like a charm for both, dev and ideas (using labels).