cardpics, savannah, sourceforge

Loic Dachary loic at gnu.org
Tue Nov 13 12:41:59 UTC 2001


ymettier at 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,

-- 
Loic   Dachary         http://www.dachary.org/  loic at dachary.org
24 av Secretan         http://www.senga.org/      loic at senga.org
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