MxControl News

[GhostShip]

It seems under the terms of their hosting the MxControl site will be purged of all non MxControl related material 

http://mxcontrol.sourceforge.net/index.php?showtopic=2445

I just wanted to inform you that we are currently in violation of the terms of use of the sourceforge.net project webservices. Following things MUST be changed in so that MXControl can be further hosted by Sourceforge.net

There followed a small list of items that needed attending to.

Lets hope a solution is at hand soon, to aviod any further problems arising 

[Lagerlout666]

Your joking, i hate it when web providers suddenly change the goal posts, id look else where.

[Bearded Blunder]

it looks more to me like mxcontrol having drifted into allowing & hosting stuff they were never supposed to under the terms they started with..

nor does it look from the short list to be a huge deal & i'm sure that those items affected will be re-homed somewhere

[KM]

nothing was changed with sourceforge tiny, it has always been against their policy to promote closed source - and zenar knew that when he posted his arrogant post something along the lines of "i will use mxcontrol for my closed source programs anyway and sourceforge can't do anything about it"... as i mentioned when i first read it, yes they can

btw, anyone trying to access that topic will find they are unable to do so... then take in to account mxcontrol is meant to be about openness and such, and see if you can figure out where the problem is

[Lagerlout666]

Hmm then zenar you are silly,but i agree entirly with KM's post, i stopped using that site the second it changed to this new layout, i find it confusing and frustrating. An as for penmax attacking this site, im sorry he feels that way but winmxworld has far more to offer than mxcontrol, its not fair that as a failing forum you should attack one that is more popular. Good luck with what ever happens over this, but i would already be looking for a new host

[Bearded Blunder]

you certainly can't access it directly, i had to login & go all round the houses to find it.. quite why it's organised so you can't simply link to a post or topic....

i've never liked the new layout either, but at least you no longer need to login to enter the site at all, but it's still way too restrictive & too confusing

[KM]

yes tiny, i apparently was - lol

I have posted there apologising for my confusion of who was doing what, but my comments on what is happening still stand even if they were directed at the wrong person

The worst thing is that it has a big logo at the top with the mxcontrol slogan "The way it was meant to be..." - do they even remember what mxcontrol was meant to be? because you basically have to take what mxcontrol is today and make it the exact opposite, then you'd have what it was meant to be...

mxcontrol was meant to be about openness and the general open source idea etc - to the far extreme in fact, the mere fact that you can't access that major piece of news on the site without being a member really sums up how far it has gone in completely the wrong direction

[Zénar]

Half of this violation of the term of uses is my fault. I've posted closed source projects. The other half is zhen fault because he forgot to put the logo of sourceforge.

[KM]

the sourceforge logo isn't needed on every single page, it's mostly just as long as it's there and visible... but either way they aren't too strict about that and there are plenty of small projects with no sourceforge logo

the 2 things mentioned were just the things that can easily be pointed to in black and white, the biggest problem they would have is the fact that the site is a closed off site with restricted access and is everything sourceforge stand against, sourceforge don't just want programs releasing source code, that isn't open source - they are there to encourage the open source idea, which does not involve only members being allowed to even as much as read major items of news on the site, and certainly does not include someone who refuses to even give out updates to a program and insists on closed test groups which are forbidden from distributing - that is the exact opposite of what sourceforge are there for

imagine you are a member of the sourceforge staff and you hear about a project that isn't being open, so you go to investigate, and the first thing you see is that wherever you go you have to register for permission to access it... you aren't going to be impressed with the openness of the project

using the site for closed source programs was just the final thing and certainly not the sole cause of any problem with the site, it just gives something black and white to point at (in fact if you look at benders post, he doesn't state at all that sourceforge complained about it it is merely something many would assume... it could just as well be bender himself being pissed off with the way the site has gone trying to make a point of it)

[Victim]

Yer, well. MXControl is starting to die. They dont get half as much posts as they used too, let alone scripts. I think they should change host.

[Bearded Blunder]

i think fall off in use has far more to do with how mxcontrol has been run recently than anything to do with who the host is..
i pretty much quit going when the new site started requiring me to login for nearly anything..
even thogh that requirement has been relaxed somewhat, i've got out of the habit of looking there
& the new layout is confusing.. so i tend to look elsewhere first even for mxcontrol programs & use the mxcontrol official site only as a last resort

[KM]

no, victim is right in his insistence that it's all about the fact that it's nothing to do with him and his friends there and the atmosphere which gives out friendly messages of "authorised personnel only, please enter the first air lock and provide retina, finger print, and DNA samples to verify you are one of the elite who are allowed here" - it's actually completely down to the pages taking over a second to load (sometimes as long as 3, or in some rare cases 4 or 5 seconds!)

changing host and reducing page load times by 100 or 200 milliseconds would probably make a huge difference to many users, that slight increase in time will make them stop thinking "wow this site is unwelcoming and unfriendly" and instead think "wow this page only took a couple of seconds to load, how friendly and welcoming"

the only time there is a problem with page load times is if you open many pages at once in multiple tabs for example (which no new user looking for help would be doing), which is in itself all down to the fact that zehn has configured it like that (a couple of lines to change, but no doubt zehn is deliberately pretending to not know that so people think sourceforge is crap and he can blame sourceforge for things he does wrong, just like he pretended not to know about the spammer blocking so that he could lock down the forum and claim it was the only way to block spammers...)