GotDotNet vs SourceForge

Hi,

I saw a question posted on the GloblBank wiki about why developer's aren't participatng on the GotDotNet message boards.

I don't claim to know the answer for all developers but personally I participate in SourceForge instead of GotDotNet. And indeed there are a large number of .Net based projects in SourceForge so perhaps I am not the only one.

The reasons I use for SourceForge instead of GotDotNet:

1. In SourceForge I can always read the code. GotDotNet I may or may not be able to. This has nothing to do with any philosophy towards open source it's just that as a developer it's often what I am interested in as oppossed to just getting some binaries.

2. There is a lot more activity in SouceForge. This is a chicken-and-egg argument.

3. GotDotNet seems in some ways like a Visual Source Safe for the Internet. My team uses VSS to store our code. While I would feel comfortable hosting our code in SourceForge (if it was open-source) I wouldn't feel so comfortable about GotDotNet. This is mainly due to the maturity, support arrangements and access controls in the GotDotNet system. As it becomes more stable perhaps this will change.

Aaron

I just stumbled upon a fantastic resource for System Architects and aspiring System Architects courtesy of the premier developer community portal GOTDOTNET:

Workspaces
Workspaces provide a dynamic online environment, enabling collaboration on software projects without the barriers created by geographical or network boundaries. As a free service, Workspaces includes a number of team-focused development tools.

eagle wrote:

I just stumbled upon a fantastic resource for System Architects and aspiring System Architects courtesy of the premier developer community portal GOTDOTNET:

Workspaces
Workspaces provide a dynamic online environment, enabling collaboration on software projects without the barriers created by geographical or network boundaries. As a free service, Workspaces includes a number of team-focused development tools.

<slap!>

aza wrote:

Hi,

I don't claim to know the answer for all developers but personally I participate in SourceForge instead of GotDotNet. And indeed there are a large number of .Net based projects in SourceForge so perhaps I am not the only one.

GotDotNet allows SourceForge functinality? I hate to sound naieve, but I didn't have a clue that they offered that!

Hmm...come to think of it, I think that's the problem.

Everytime I have visited gotdotnet, I'm greeted with a homepage with like 50 links on it.  Nearly every single one is simply a link to an MSDN article - so I think to myself, 'Self, why go through a middle man when I can go directly to msdn?'  In this way I only visit gotdotnet when I'm bored and looking for interesting reading I might have missed.

I just went to gotDotNet again to look for this 'workspaces' thing and its a small link (number 7) in the menu bar.  No wonder they arn't getting traffic!

If you go to sourceforge.net, smack dab in the middle of the page in big bold letters reads: "SourceForge.net is the world's largest
Open Source software development website,
with the largest repository of Open Source code and applications available on the Internet. SourceForge.net provides free services to Open Source developers"

If gotDotNet wants their community to be a .net version of SF.net, then they need to do a better job advertising it.

Workspaces for System Architecs is NEW, have you had a look?

Well, I have found the GotDotNet Workspaces to be extremely slow; sometimes taking 60+ seconds to process the directory pages.