From: Sean Middleditch <elanthis@...>
Date: 2001-12-04T23:48:43+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:27449] Re: Sourceforge vs. Savannah

On Tue, Dec 04, 2001 at 09:30:42PM +0900, Tobias DiPasquale wrote:
> Sean,
> 
> I regret that you had to phrase your statement like that. I am one of 
> these "paranoid freaks" you speak of, having moved my project off of 
> SourceForge and onto Savannah.

Like I said, freaks are fun.  Have a sense of humour.  I do strongly
disagree with a paranoid attitude towards VA's practices, and I'm not a
huge fan of GNU (whatever one says about me running GNU/Linux, most of
the software I use was written by another average programmer like me and
just had the GNU tag slapped on it - I feel no loyalty the FSF's radical
attitudes, just because of their "marketing" skills).

> 
> The issue at hand is not whether or not SourceForge stays free, is free 
> or whatever... it's what SourceForge chooses to do with it's own code. 
> That was what all the hoopla was about. SourceForge has to set an 
> example for all the projects on it's site, and if it doesn't, what are 
> developer's left to think? The recent events at SourceForge were enough 
> to show me (and many others, I noticed) that SourceForge might not be 
> the most trustworthy place to keep our projects, so we moved them either 
> off-site or to Savannah.

I still fail to see the problem.  This is still no different that using
a proprietary router to function on the internet.  They offer a service,
one that is and will likely remain free.  SF is a huge ad, yes; so is
Savannah, for the FSF.  SF needs to keep its code closed, or there'd be
ten billion Savannah like project, all better than SF, then VA would go
out of business and SF really would disappear.  OPen source and free
software don't work when you need to eat, unless you are consulting;
which, at this time, is a tough business to be in.

> 
> I can only speak for myself, really, but I was appalled by the actions 
> that SourceForge took regarding their source and treatment of people who 
> had written code for them. So, I moved my code to a site that will 
> never, ever do that, even if they should kick me off because its not 
> part of the GNU project. And hey, who knows, maybe my project will 
> become part of the GNU project someday?? But, I digress. The issue was 
> always with SourceForge (the operation) itself, and the treatment by 
> them of those who were good enough to contribute their time and skills 
> to the SourceForge effort. They had a right to feel mistreated, and I 
> for one was not about to be associated with an operation that partakes 
> in those kinds of activities. If I wanted to, I could just go work for 
> Microshaft. Remember, Open Source is about alternatives, as well.

This mistreatment I've not heard of.  A pointer to an article would be
appreciated, perhaps then I might be more well informed.

> 
> On the other hand, I agree that a Ruby foundry on SourceForge would be a 
> very good thing, not only for the community, but also in terms of 
> increasing the community base. Other developers who might have never 
> heard of or used Ruby before could be exposed to this wonderful 
> language. For this reason, I too agree that a Ruby foundry should be 
> started. But why not start one on Savannah as well? I'm sure at this 
> stage of the game that the FSF would love to have all those projects and 
> hits on their site, if nothing else but to promote the site's usage. We 
> could help them out by extending the site to include Foundry 
> functionality and in turn have an alternative to SF, should you wish for 
> one. Anybody working on that, know of anyone who is doing that?

Yes, if Savannah offers it, go ahead.  No reason not to, at all.  I'd
like to see Savannah manage as much of a load as SF receives, tho.  ~,^
I think Savannah will be more viable when A) they are using their own
code base, not an ancient snapshot of the rather flaky SF code, B) it's
been proven to handle heavy loads, and C) they can guarantee they won't
boot my project (and my CVS and data) because I choose to use the BSD
license or something instead of the GPL.  Heck, in that regard, I think
SF should actually allow closed-source projects, but perhaps for a fee.
Then they might be able to "free up" more of SF a bit.  The open-source
loyalty that they have in that regard is actually hurting them quite a
bit.

Sean Etc.

> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> 0100001101000010010000110100011101110101
> << Tobias DiPasquale >>
> -=[ Solaris Systems Administrator ]=-
> Villanova University ECE Dept.
> mailto: anany@ece.vill.edu
> -=[ Applications Engineering Consultant ]=-
> BCS Solutions, Inc.
> mailto: tdipasquale@bcssinc.com
> 0100001101000010010000110100011101110101
> 
>