Google Code Deprecates Download Service For Project Hosting 185
New submitter c0d3g33k writes "Google Project Hosting announced changes to the Download service on Wednesday, offering only 'increasing misuse of the service and a desire to keep our community safe and secure' by way of explanation. Effective immediately, existing projects that offer no downloads and all new projects will no longer be able to create downloads. Existing projects which currently have downloads will lose the ability to create new downloads by January 2014, though existing downloads will remain available 'for the foreseeable future.' Google Drive is recommended as an alternative, but this will likely have to be done manually by project maintainers since the ability to create and manage downloads won't be part of the Project Hosting tools. This is a rather baffling move, since distributing project files via download is integral to FOSS culture."
So, "Don't Be Evil..." (Score:4, Interesting)
Becomes, "Don't Be Open."
This is a rather baffling move, since distributing project files via download is integral to FOSS culture."
Considering the recent spate of incidents involving Google taking a shit on the FOSS community that helped to create it, I don't find it baffling at all.
Google is finally turning into the dickhead actor who got rich and forgot who his real friends are.
chrUbuntu (Score:0, Interesting)
This effectively shuts down that project right? I can understand why Google would want to eliminate the ability of people to easily put an alternative OS on their Chromebook.
Re:So? (Score:2, Interesting)
Only affects Google hosting? (Score:5, Interesting)
I know more than a few projects using code.google.com that have downloads from a separate server, perhaps to get around some inconvienences already built into the system.
Maybe the cost of bandwidth is getting to be significant, or maybe it is due to abuse. The announcement seems to suggest people were creating projects just to distribute large files, probably copyrighted material, (and possibly malware), and getting Google to host it for free.
Still, if you have to set up two or more different services to host your project, why would you bother with the one that didn't allow project downloads? What would be the point of using that on a community project? It would seem this would drive the community away. Perhaps this telegraphs the death knell for yet another Google service?
what's wrong with the command line (Score:2, Interesting)
svn checkout enter-url-here
It's how I download everything from google code, and for github I use git. or is the command line "too ancient" to use anymore?
We've heard of BitTorrent, haven't we? (Score:5, Interesting)
My MOM knows what BitTorrent is. It's available on nearly every platform in existence; there's even a javascript client, I think? Some browsers now have clients built-in or available via extensions. With DHT supported by most every client, you don't even need a tracker. Web seeding means you don't have to guarantee seeded peers if you've got some HTTP mirror available somewhere.
So, can FOSS projects please grow up and start using bittorrent more? Can we make torrents a little more transparent to users, as well? As in, you click a link and you don't need to do anything else, no external programs, etc? Some big projects like Libreoffice have been using BitTorrent for a while; distributions have been as well even longer.
PS:For the love of god, please pick a sensible chunk size *glares at people who create 300MB torrents with 4MB chunk sizes*
Re:So, "Don't Be Evil..." (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't use google drive from work.
Re:So? (Score:3, Interesting)
Nothing prevents you to put a link to the binaries on your website. And if you can't afford a to host a website, there are still file hosting service happy to finally get some legal files.
Also, you know, there were some malware abusing the system and downloading some files on some popular legitimate projects ( http://news.softpedia.com/news/New-TDL-Malware-Variant-Uses-Chromium-Embedded-Framework-339791.shtml [softpedia.com] ). I don't know many projects affected beside this one and I'm sure Google knows better and this move wasn't just to mess around with legitimate users and reduce the costs.
Google seems to be cutting lots of services in the name of abuse...
Google Code downloads gone because they were being abused.
XMPP federation gone because it was being used by spammers.
CalDAV gone because... well, that one just seems to be because its open and Google wants to push everyone to their proprietary APIs instead.
I'm just waiting for them to pull the plug on email federation with Gmail and Google web search because they both get used by spammers too...
Guess what; pretty much any useful service is going to get abused - its an ongoing battle to reduce abuse whilst keeping the service useful and if Google are going to pull the plug on everything that might be abused they may as well give up and wind up the company now... (FWIW, I see a lot of spam email originating from real gmail accounts or using gmail accounts as contact addresses for replies; also a lot of phishing emails that use Google Docs to collect responses).
Re:So, "Don't Be Evil..." (Score:5, Interesting)
Using the file download hosting feature to host malware and sending emails with deceptive links to that malware to distribute it to unsuspecting users seems to be one of the main abuses.