Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] help needed with savannah

[Alex Fernandez]

Hi,

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 5:33 AM, Mario Castelan Castro <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>> We greatly need more people to help with the incoming savannah support
>>>> requests and new project submissions.  Even if it's just handling a
>>>> couple of requests on the weekend, it would make a big difference to
>>>> have more people contributing.
>>>>
>>>> Any chance of (re)finding time for this?
>>>
>>> Hm... I think I could try jumping back.  Will get in touch soon.
>>
>> So I've spent a few hours today putting up a helper script to aid in
>> analyzing new project submissions.
>
> Time is a precious resource.  If you want to donate part of your time to
> helping us please evaluate projects.  Scripts aren't worth it.  Project
> evaluation isn't all about mechanical license checking!.  There are
> other things to do as well:
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/savannah-hackers-public/2010-03/msg00035.html

Depends on what your priorities are. In my view, letting pass 10
projects that shouldn't is better than blocking 1 project that should.
Likewise, keeping submissions open for an indeterminate amount of time
is quite worse than a quick approval or denial. So Mario, I would ask
you to not block submissions with lots of philosophical questions
about attitude or about the spirit to share, but just stick to facts.
Is the code free? Does it respect the four freedoms? Can the project
be redistributed with modifications? That is what matters; the
submitter can have a less-than-open attitude for sharing other
artifacts, but that is not our job to judge.

Allow me to point out two GNU documents which emphasize this point:
  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#VerbatimCopying
  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#OpinionLicenses

Once we establish that we only need to check facts (can the project be
redistributed freely with modifications), things get easier. Facts are
easy to machine-check. When time is precious, better solve the issue
for the 90% that can be checked automatically (even if it takes a
little longer to get there) than go one by one for 100% of projects.
You save time in the end.

>> I'm now attaching the script here, but maybe there is something like a
>> github account for savannah hackers?..
>
> WTF??? >:(

Alexander sufficiently apologized for the honest mistake, I don't
think a knee-jerk reaction like that is in order. After all github is
a perfectly legitimate place to host code (and they give a great
service too).

Alex.