SourceForge is a web service founded by Geoffrey B. Jeffery, Tim Perdue, and Drew Streib in November 1999.

[5][6] It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirroring of downloads for load balancing, a wiki for documentation, developer and user mailing lists, user-support forums, user-written reviews and ratings, a news bulletin, micro-blog for publishing project updates, and other features.

[9] Major features (amongst others)[10] include project wikis, metrics and analysis, access to a MySQL database, and unique sub-domain URLs (in the form http://project-name.sourceforge.net).

The vast number of users at SourceForge.net (over three million as of 2013)[11] exposes prominent projects to a variety of developers and can create a positive feedback loop.

[18] On February 9, 2016, SourceForge announced they had eliminated their DevShare program practice of bundling installers with project downloads.

In November 2008, SourceForge was sued by the French collection society Société civile des Producteurs de Phonogrammes en France (SPPF) for hosting downloads of the file sharing application Shareaza.

[38][39] In July 2015, Dice announced that it planned to sell SourceForge and Slashdot,[40] and, in January 2016, the two sites were sold to the San Diego–based BIZX, LLC for an undisclosed amount.

[1] On September 26, 2012, it was reported that attackers had compromised a SourceForge mirror, and modified a download of phpMyAdmin to add security exploits.

[44] In November 2013, GIMP, a free image manipulation program, removed its download from SourceForge, citing misleading download buttons that potentially confuse customers as well as SourceForge's own Windows installer, which bundles potentially unwanted programs with GIMP.

In a statement, GIMP called SourceForge a "once useful and trustworthy place to develop and host FLOSS applications" that now faces "a problem with the ads they allow on their sites".

[11] In its terms of use,[61] SourceForge states that its services are not available to users in countries on the sanction list of the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (including Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria).