Multiple questions asked.
“projects you carry don’t really need you as a download site since they already have one.”
- I just explained to you why some projects use FossHub although they have other download options available.
“So, so far, I don’t see any project using FossHub”
- What would you like to see? Large green “Download from FossHub” buttons? Banners with FossHub on each project page that use us? We never ever asked people to use our name, logo or do any marketing hype.
“I see projects that have downloads available on FossHub, but nothing tells me they asked for it (and I would be surprised if Gimp or RawTherapee had done so).”
- Again, you are pushing me into a different discussion.
Free (open source) programs such as GIMP use the GNU General Public License (The GNU General Public License v3.0 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation) is there anything I need to add here? Good, now regarding your question
we added GIMP and RawTherapee upon users request. To make this even more transparent here are the ways we add software titles:
A. User request
B. Publisher request/suggestion
C. We add them
Before we publish them, the software titles must be clean: without software bundles or any other spyware/adware/malware.
Despite the GNU license, whenever we can, we ask permission from the authors (I know this sounds stupid) but if we don’t receive any reply we might proceed and list them if we are allowed to do so (again, depending on the license). Usually, a good indicator is if the software is listed on almost any other download site we are good to go.
However, if the authors of certain free software do not allow us to publish their work, we will remove their software immediately, regardless of their license type. We think it is fair to respect such a decision from their side.
If you have a problem with this, you can ask the publishers to send us a removal request, and we will honor it in less than 24 hours.
“So, back to square one, what is the point?”
- The point is that we are an alternative for the reasons I mentioned numerous times before in this post. Furthermore, your question is hard to answer because you are looking at us from a visitor perspective. If you would’ve been using our platform (as a developer), you could’ve drawn your own conclusion: good or bad.