The FSF Europe recommends: avoid SourceForge

[phil hunt]

On Tuesday 13 November 2001 11:01 pm, MJ Ray wrote:
> Phil:
> > > FSFE is kicking someone when they're down (deservedly down,
> > > IMO,
> >
> > Deservedly? Why?
> > The way I see it is that VA has in all been of benefit to the
> > free software community. Sourceforge *has* been helpful to many
> > projects, even if less helpful than some people want.
>
> SF wasn't created from altruism 

I never said it was. Nor, for example, are Sun and IBM releasing
free software out of altruism, they are doing it in order to
increase their profits.

> and now they have turned their back
> on open source, which IIRC they helped to create as an attempt to
> replace free software.

Open source and free software are the same thing (essentially) with a 
different name.

Would a rose by another name smell as sweet?

>  The balance has changed and SF now does a
> lot more for VA than it does for the community.  It was basically a
> mind-share land-grab for VA, the same reason that it bought
> andover.net, and if they are going to try to *alter* community
> direction, they must be resisted, to the point of death.

I think it would be more effective if you didn't come across so
extreme.

To be the question is: does sourceforge involve vendor lock-in? If
the answer is yes, then I won't use it, and I will recommend that
others not use it without satisfying themselves that they are aware 
of that issue and what it implies and it isn't a problem for them.

> Harsh, I know, but a community can't go two ways at once and still
> be one community.

Sure it can. And in fact the free software community often moves
in several directions at the same time. So we have Linux and BSD
and Hurd. We have Gtk+ and Qt and Tk. We have GNOME and KDE. We
have INN and leafnode and sn. We have no end of news readers and
mail clients.

And we are still one community. Long live free software!

>  They've already had one failed fork attempt with
> "open source"

That's a rebranding program not a fork attempt. A rose would
still be a rose if I decided to call it a "wug" as well.

> > True. FSFE won't lok good out of it.
>
> No, indeed.  This seems to have revealed some confusion in the FSFE
> team, but it looks as though it will only be covered by the
> "community media" and not the mainstream press.  Hopefully, FSFE
> will concentrate more on positives than negatives in future

Good idea.

> and try
> to keep track of what its members are doing.  If it can get a
> positive on this topic out in the next day or so, the earlier
> negative may get even less coverage in the weeklies and monthlies.

-- 
*** Philip Hunt *** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk ***