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SourceForge accused of shackling GIMP in kinky adware

Just download direct, say FOSS graphics folk

The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) has accused SourceForge of violating its open-sourcery by wrapping the popular graphics program in adware.

GIMP's Google+ page says “It appears that SourceForge took over the control of the 'GIMP for Windows' account and is now distributing an ads-enabled installer of GIMP. They also locked out original owner of the account, Jernej Simončič, who has been building the Windows versions of GIMP for our project for years.”

Not so, says software hub SourceForge, in a post that claims “The GIMP-Win project was registered on SourceForge in October of 2004. In 2013, the GIMP-Win author discontinued use of SourceForge for download delivery.”

That discontinuation triggered a change in SourceForge's handling of GIMP because “In cases where a project is no longer actively being maintained, SourceForge has in some cases established a mirror of releases that are hosted elsewhere. This was done for GIMP-Win.”

“Mirrored projects,” SourceForge explains, “are sometimes used to deliver easy-to-decline third-party offers, and the original downloads are always available.”

“Since our change to mirror GIMP-Win, we have received no requests by the original author to resume use of this project. We welcome further discussion about how SourceForge can best serve the GIMP-Win author.”

GIMP's updated its home page with a pointer to its downloads facility and is again trying to steer as many people as possible in that direction, rather than SourceForge. The project tried to dump SourceForge back in 2013, again over the issue of bundled ads.

Commenters in the Google+ thread and elsewhere seem to be siding with GIMP on this one, and lamenting that SourceForge isn't as classy as it has been in the past. ®

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