[Savannah-hackers] Re: Questions about the rules for Savannah projects

[Mathieu Roy]

What do you think of the following?
Personally, I think we should answer positively to this person.


Stuart Ballard <address@hidden> said:

> I'd like to use Savannah to host the development of a project that
> I've been developing privately for some time. I'll be releasing it
> under a combination of the GNU GPL and the GNU LGPL (GPL for tools,
> LGPL for runtime libraries).
> 
> I'm writing to you, rather than just going through the usual "Register
> new project" process, because the project in its current state has
> some dependencies on non-free software. One of the first things I want
> to do after releasing it is to remove these dependencies, but I'd like
> to set up the development on Savannah first, if possible, while I work
> on removing them.
> 
> The dependencies should not take long to remove - they are as follows:
> 
> - The project is written in Java but has not been tested on any Free
> java environment. The Classpath, gcj and Kaffe projects all provide
> all the APIs that I actually use: eliminating this dependency should
> be just a matter of doing some thorough testing and fixing any
> incompatibilities that turn up.
> 
> - The project can (optionally) generate C# output files; these haven't
> been tested on any Free C# implementation. Similarly to the situation
> with Java, this should be just a matter of testing on Mono or DotGNU
> and fixing any incompatibilities. The C# output is optional anyway.
> 
> - The project's purpose is for database access, but the only databases
> currently supported are proprietary (Oracle and Microsoft SQL
> Server). Adding support for Free databases such as PostgreSQL or MySQL
> should be essentially trivial for someone who knows the ins and outs
> of these databases. That's one of the reasons I'd like to be on
> Savannah - while I can research a Free database myself and add the
> support eventually, it would be much quicker and easier for somebody
> who already knows those databases well. And the services Savannah
> provides would make it much easier to collaborate with any such person
> (public mailing lists, public CVS repository, etc).
> 
> I am a strong believer in Free Software and I don't like having
> dependencies on non-free stuff at all - the non-free DB dependencies
> were forced on me due to external circumstances and the non-free
> language dependencies were only added at all in the knowledge that
> free implementations were becoming available. I recognise your
> distaste for including any non-free dependencies at all on Savannah,
> but I'd ask if you'd consider making Savannah's services available to
> help *remove* these non-free dependencies and produce a useful
> all-free tool.
> 
> (One justification that I can think of for allowing this: you do
> accept projects for which no code at all currently exists; in these
> cases, potential users will get nothing useful if they try to download
> the project. If you like, you can imagine that my project is one for
> which, although a large body of code already exists, the existing code
> is not yet functional. A user with only free software on their system
> will not get anything useful at this point, but the same is true of a
> project for which no code has yet been written...)
> 
> Thank you in advance for your consideration, and whatever decision you
> make, I will respect it. If the decision is "no", I'll still work on
> removing the dependencies, and I'd still like to host on Savannah once
> the removal is complete.
> 
> Thanks,
> Stuart.
> 
> -- 
> Stuart Ballard, Programmer
> NetReach - Internet Solutions
> (215) 283-2300, ext. 126
> http://www.netreach.com/
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Savannah-hackers mailing list
> address@hidden
> http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/savannah-hackers
> 
> 

-- 
Mathieu Roy
 
 << Profile  << http://savannah.gnu.org/users/yeupou <<
 >> Homepage >> http://yeupou.coleumes.org           >>
 << GPG Key  << http://stock.coleumes.org/gpg        <<