Why Github? Copying from one commercial provider to another doesn't solve the fundamental problem. Using git helps, but most of those old repos will never get cloned.<p>In 10 years time, Github may be the tired old service that gets acquired by a hedge fund that decides to monetize their repos. Such things are part of the corporate lifecycle.
Why aren't you mirroring the binaries? These are vital for people in the future who do not have the time to set up a build environment for software from a decade ago.<p>I'd also echo the concerns of others about GitHub.<p>Proper archivists should do for SourceForge what they did for other projects. Archive Team, maybe? Looks like they have a wiki page: <a href="http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=SourceForge" rel="nofollow">http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=SourceForge</a>
Honestly, this is a serious issue for my field. There are so many obscure academic binaries hosted on SF... I hope someone manages to mirror them. [The fact that a lot of the scientific community is so backwards in adopting modern coding standards is another conversation for another day.]
Sourceforge is on the radar here, but maybe it's time to step it up.<p><a href="http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Fire_Drill" rel="nofollow">http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Fire_Drill</a><p>Update: seems others have linked to archiveteam.org, so maybe that's the best route. Is the OP part of the AT effort or do they know about each other? Maybe they should.
Nice.<p>I agree with what the others are saying, there's a lot of source code for solving obscure programs that is only on Sourceforge.<p>One example I found recently is a program called QLumEdit. I recently had to figure out how to work with EuLumdat files, and if it wasn't for the source code for this program on Sourceforge I would have been completely stumped (well not quite, but it would have taken me ages).<p>If SF goes down the toilet, a lot of knowledge goes with it so this is awesome to see!<p>If anybody is interested, I was converting this code from C++ to .net, my horrible hacky unrefactored effort is here - <a href="https://github.com/bumblebeeman/eulum.net" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/bumblebeeman/eulum.net</a><p>I am planning to make this code nicer, and develop it into a WPF app when I have time!<p>I am getting pretty close too, here is my .net generated version of the images this program produces: <a href="http://imgur.com/PCmpnJ2" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/PCmpnJ2</a>
That's great. I started doing that myself (my own git server, not github) for some projects I care about. This effort seems include a very narrow list, though.<p>For CVS, though, I suspect cvs-fast-export [1] will do a better job than git-cvsimport.<p>1 <a href="http://www.catb.org/esr/cvs-fast-export/" rel="nofollow">http://www.catb.org/esr/cvs-fast-export/</a>
What about creating a torrent containing all these unmaintained SF projects (with binary downloads included)?<p>This would dramatically increase the odds that the content is never lost.
This seems much more like a temporary fix, not really a solution. A few years from now GitHub can do the same thing that sf did. This after all seems to be the fate of commercial companies that explore open source, once they start to lose users to new competitors.
Note 1: Moving things to GitHub or elsewhere does not remove them from SourceForge. So SF can continue to host and enjoy links on unmaintained websites, search engines etc.<p>Note 2: If their business model is offering popular binaries and source, they can just copy these from other sites and repackage them. Open source software allows you to do this. If no one else is interesting in bundling and monetizing, then they can buy traffic and still succeed.<p>Note 3: Remember that academy award winning movie from 1943? Not so great it today's light. While perhaps one of the goals of the Internet and cheap storage is to keep a copy of everything, and its often better to <i>not</i> re-invent the wheel, if something fall by the wayside, and its needed, it will be created.<p>Note 4: There are plenty of websites which catalog useful abandonware, that someone had to find a physical disk drive from. If the software has value, chances are someone will eventually repost it somewhere without a massive organized effort.<p>----<p>There is clearly value in moving over some project to GitHub or elsewhere, but if some things are not migrated or moved life will go on.