ymettier@libertysurf.fr writes:
Hi!
I just read the paper you wrote about the danger on sourceforge (http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/article2001-10- 20-01.fr.html). I currently maintain some projects that are hosted on sourceforge (including gtktalog, the others are definitely not well known), and the last one I launched is cardpics, last week, but on savannah.
There is something not very clear in the article you wrote, at least in the french translation I read. Is there a short-term danger for free software that is only hosted on sourceforge? I mean, is gtktalog (and the others projects hosted there) in freedom danger, or the problem is just that hosting gtktalog on sourceforge now promotes non-free software?
I honestly don't know. The short term danger that everyone agrees on is that VA {Linux,Software} becomes unable to pay for the bandwidth and hosting and that sf.net is closed.
I tend to think that being dependent on non free software is a danger that has high practical implications. I'm happy to use Debian GNU/Linux because it is 100% Free Software. It is an object I can share, help grow, adapt, distribute. I'm not happy to use sf.net because it's not Free Software, it became foreign to the world in which I leave. In that respect, yes, it threatens the freedom of projects it hosts because it makes them dependent on software that gives you no freedom at all.
In any case, gtktalog2 will be coded from scratch, and will be an new project: I won't put it on sourceforge. When gtktalog1 was launched, sourceforge had the monopol on free soft hosting because it was the only one. Now, sourceforge is trying to keep that monopol but there are alternatives: I prefer to use them (and the fsf one looks promising)
IMHO, what really matters is that someone willing to leave in a purely Free Software world can do so. I'm that kind of guy and therefore I don't want to use sf.net. In that spirit, when seeking for alternatives I would favor those that are based on Free Software and built in a cooperative way.
I hope this clarifies things a bit,