Re: getting FSF Europe, Chatper UK going (was Re: Thanks)

[Raphael Rousseau]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2001 at 12:19:44AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> Frederic Couchet <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Using Savannah to the fsfeuk list in a question of cooperation between
> > future chapters and associate organizations, visibility of efforts,
> > cooperation with GNU, share sysadmin efforts with GNU ... and not a
> > question of « all your eggs in one basket »
> 
> You see the doughnut, I see the hole.  Maybe this is more of a sign
> that Savannah should aim to be more inclusive of projects which it
> doesn't host, rather than pursuing the same sort of "you're either on
> us, or you're ignored by us" that sourceforge appears to do?

First of all, remember that SourceForge is the first worldwide (and
successful) initiative which managed to gather so quickly so many people 
around one tool.
How did they manage to do it ?
SourceForge represents the gathering of features which already existed
in different tools :
        - mailing-lists management
        - home page support
        - bug tracking system
        - forum management
        - ...
and all those features integrated with only one authentication system.

If you create one mailing-list today, out from Savannah, you'll have to
re-create it on such a tool later, to get all other features when you'll
need them. If you decide notnto use such a SourceForge-like tool, you'll 
have to manage different tools, with different authentication schemes,
without consistency. I would find it a  ***Bad Thing*** (tm).

It's not a matter of being in or out Savannah. It's a matter of
efficiency, and to integrate the FSF standards of collaboration.
Savannah benefits from this invaluable effort of integration : you want to
create a project, then you fill a few fields in the Savannah project
creation form and ... here you are, nearly ***automagically*** !
No need for maintenance (by yourself), no need to setup up a machine to
host each of the tools.

There is an effort being launched to define a common format to allow
people to migrate projects from such a platform to another (of the same
type or from/to another non-SourceForge-powered one). You should see it 
with Loïc...
Once such a format will be created and adopted, you won't have any reason
to fear being hosted on Savannah and being a ***prisoner*** of it...
But today, there is only Savannah, and the more people will use it, the
more people will feel there is needs for news features, such
inter-platforms migration.

 
> Appwatch was supposed to only list DFSG (or something) compliant
> licences when it started, but these aren't apps anyway.  We could do
> with a "freshmeat" for GPL *projects* perhaps?

APRIL (one of the French associate organizations of the FSFE) is
currently actively planning to make such a site.
At the moment, discussions are debated in French, but it could perhaps 
change if such an effort has other contributors...

        Raph
-- 
Raphael Rousseau <RaphaelRousseau AT fsfeurope DOT org>
          "Le Logiciel Libre est la conscience du logiciel"
Secrétaire de la FSF France                  http://france.fsfeurope.org
Free Software Foundation Europe Vice-Chancellor http://www.fsfeurope.org

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