e-Volve Internet Services

Some of you might remember that in November 2013, we abandoned SourceForge (SF) as the primary download site for the GIMP installers for Windows platforms and moved the files to our own download server, download.gimp.org

The tons of links on the web pointing to the former site made keeping the installers there as well a necessity, though, and since SF claimed that our outrage over their “installer with benefits” was based on a misunderstanding, this seemed to be a low-risk approach.

However we are receiving reports that people who get there by chance receive small installers that include additional software. And it’s no clicks on those ‘big green download arrow’ ads this time, we’ve tried ourselves. SF has not responded to our inquiry yet, and we found that the maintainer of the GIMP for Windows installers is locked out of that SF project now.

Please go to our own downloads page to get the GIMP for Windows installers.

This is the GIMP project’s official statement on SourceForge’s actions in regard to “abandoned” projects on their service.
It is archived in the GIMP Developer mailing list archive.

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:

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.

Some of you might remember that in November 2013, we abandoned SourceForge (SF) as the primary download site for the GIMP installers for Windows platforms and moved the files to our own download server, download.gimp.org

The tons of links on the web pointing to the former site made keeping the installers there as well a necessity, though, and since SF claimed that our outrage over their “installer with benefits” was based on a misunderstanding, this seemed to be a low-risk approach.

However we are receiving reports that people who get there by chance receive small installers that include additional software. And it’s no clicks on those ‘big green download arrow’ ads this time, we’ve tried ourselves. SF has not responded to our inquiry yet, and we found that the maintainer of the GIMP for Windows installers is locked out of that SF project now.

Update:
And now SF is launching an attempt at damage control.

Ars Technica has a nice summary, with insightful comments.

Please go to our own downloads page to get the GIMP for Windows installers.

During Libre Graphics Meeting 2015 last week in Toronto our very own Jehan Pagès announced a new open animated movie project, ZeMarmot. It’s a road movie with a marmot as protagonist.

The team will be using just free/libre applications for the production: GIMP, Blender, Ardour, and a few others. Jehan will also resume his work on animation features in GIMP, extend OpenRaster file format to support animation, and improve Blender’s non-linear video editor as much as he can.

You can support the campaign at IndieGoGo.

During Libre Graphics Meeting 2015 last week in Toronto our very own Jehan Pagès announced a new open animated movie project, ZeMarmot. It’s a road movie with a marmot as protagonist.

The team will be using just free/libre applications for the production: GIMP, Blender, Ardour, and a few others. Jehan will also resume his work on animation features in GIMP, extend OpenRaster file format to support animation, and improve Blender’s non-linear video editor as much as he can.

You can support the campaign at IndieGoGo.