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Renegade:
Of course I want to know what platform the software runs on. However, far too often you need to download the code (sometimes through CSV or some other hellish interface) to find out what it's written in and if you can use it.

Now I'm trying to figure out why this is. Why would you post OS software, but neglect to mention what the language and platform is?

Either that or I'm completely blind. Has anyone else run into this?  :huh:

Then again, there are projects that wear the platform and language on their sleeve much like they are just trying to evangelize the platform/language.

Any middle ground?  :'(

PhilB66:

How about Open Source Alternatives? Does it make your cut?

Eóin:
I'm not sure it's fair to describe CVS and it's kin as a 'hellish interface', they are not really meant to be tools for non-developers. And even with that lot of OS projects do offer a web based way of browsing the source code for the curious.

Other than that though I too find the lack of details frustrating for some projects. For example I generally stay away from Java apps so hate when I download a cool sounding opensource program to find it needs Java. I have similar irrational dislike of programs that are written in python.

I'm not sure that is what you are getting at though? Are you speaking from an end-user view wanting to know if the program will run on your pc or from a developers stand point wanting to know if there is code in there you may be able to reuse?

mouser:
i'm not sure this is on topic, but personally i find cvs and even svn (which is a lot better) inexcusably confusing to log into and checkout new repositories.

f0dder:
subversion :-*

...but you shouldn't need to grab the latest bleeding-edge nightly build with cvs/svn just to get an app. Fortunately, most of the time you don't, except if you want bleeding-edge.

Most of the opensource stuff I use do have mention of language/platform at least somewhere in the docs, although not everybody puts it up on the front page :)

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