Re: [Repo-criteria-discuss] Rough Draft of Announcement (Task 2)

[Mike Gerwitz]

On Mon, Mar 07, 2016 at 00:43:33 +0000, Andrew Ferguson wrote:
> I have also been in touch with GitHub customer support, and they don't seem
> very interested / motivated in meeting the criteria ("Nor can I say that
> meeting the criteria is on our roadmap for the foreseeable future") - not
> that I'm particularly surprised by this response. Has anyone had any
> success, or know anyone else I should contact?

I have tried personally, and RMS has tried as well.  Neither of us had
any success.  See:

  https://mikegerwitz.com/about/githubbub

Thank you for trying, though. :)

With regards to your message---I think it is very well written.  Some points:

>    Services that fail to follow the code are taking unfair advantage
>    of their users, and should not be used or recommended to others.

I don't think the intent is necessarily to discourage their use; the
criteria are intended for acceptable hosting for the GNU project itself;
we hope that others will take it into consideration as well.

But don't hold me to that---I'd prefer Zak comment on that.

>    During the past few months a dedicated group of volunteers have been
>    scrutinizing every aspect of the criteria. Several major code
>    hosting services,
>    including Savannah, GitHub and SourceForge have been analyzed and the
>    appropriate grades have been assigned. The specific sections of each
>    service
>    that prevent each service from achieving the next grade, as well as
>    aspects
>    which already achieve criteria in the next grade have been noted.
>    This enables
>    volunteers and maintainers to identify when a repository has reached
>    a level
>    qualifying it for the next grade.
>
>    Currently, none of the four repositories evaluated have reached the
>    top grade of
>    A+, and only Savannah has reached a grading of A.

>    For some this is due to a lack of commitment and motivation on part
>    of the developers of the repository to make the necessary changes,
>    while other services lack the necessary skills or volunteers to
>    achieve an acceptable grade.

I'd omit this.

>    By taking the time to write to the administrators and maintainers
>    of a code hosting service, not only is their awareness of the need
>    for tools that respect user freedom and privacy increased, but also
>    their motivation to implement the necessary changes.  Volunteers
>    with a coding ability are encouraged to aid the development of
>    existing code repositories so that they meet the
>    guidelines. Several features have already been added by volunteers
>    to the repository service GitLab such as the removal of intrusive
>    analytic software and proprietary JavaScript.

I don't think this is a campaign so much as the current state of
affairs.  Not that it's a bad thing.  Zak?

-- 
Mike Gerwitz
Free Software Hacker | GNU Maintainer
https://mikegerwitz.com
FSF Member #5804 | GPG Key ID: 0x8EE30EAB

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