> It was "the way" to share your OSS project in its time
Nobody questions that.
But that doesn't quality for "the GitHub of that time", because most people like to use GitHub, so the analogy is incomplete in some essential aspects.
Eh, that's pretty nebulous. There's a whole lot not to like about GitHub, too. Vaguely hand wavy "oh that doesn't count cuz most people like GitHub" isn't really much proof of anything.
If you had the resources to host your own tracker/repository/wiki/mailinglist instead of using Sourceforge you did that. Github is so good it's actually hard to convince people it would be a good idea to have server for those things, even if money and time isn't the issue.
Not sure what you mean by "proof". Just take it as an anecdote of a contemporary witness. From your previous comments it seems that you didn't have to suffer through that time. Lucky you!
Hah, not quite. I've been in IT since 1995, suffered a layoff in the first dotcom crash. Don't get me wrong, Sourceforge has never been something I liked, but that didn't mean I agreed with the premise.
How do you figure? It was "the way" to share your OSS project in its time. It wasn't great, but it was the best we had.