Re: Subprojects in Savannah

[Luis Falcon]

Hello, Alfred

Thank you for your mail and for your comments.

On Sun, 29 Nov 2020 04:33:03 -0500
"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@gnu.org> wrote:

>    Sorry, I've waited too long. I have started the migration o the GNU
>    Health mercurial repository to OSDN. It's a pity, but it seems
> like the requests over these years for the modernization of Savannah
> have not been taken into consideration. 
> 
> They have, but like all volunteer projects -- someone has to do the
> work.  Would you like to help with that?  Nothing will happen, nor
> will it help Savannah or the GNU project if everyone does nothing.  
> 

Please, let's stop using the volunteer job as an excuse. Many of us
volunteer in different projects, not just technical. Volunteering
implies commitment.

Don't take this personal, is not directed to anyone in particular. What
I mean is that sysadmin or management o Savannah can not be something
that we do in our spare time or if we feel like doing it.

And yes, I have proposed different models and Libre platforms for
Savannah. In my opinion, spending time patching an obsolete system is
not the right approach. 

I could have created the repositories myself in 5 minutes, as I did in
OSDN, if I had access to that resource. We need to be in full control
of our resources.

I don't want to get back to the old discussion on who is in charge of
GNU resources, and who has access to the servers. 

> How is OSDN ranked on the GNU Ethical Repository list?  .

You mean https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-evaluation.html ?

OSDN has not been evaluated by GNU, and I explained my criteria to
choose it on the news.

I find very worrisome that GNU approves platforms which deny access to
citizens from some countries, like our friends from Cuba. Denying
access to Libre social projects based on the country of residence or
origin is an flagrant attack to human rights. 

> You say that it only hosts free software licesed projects, but that
> isn't what they say -- the say open source licenses, this is not the
> same.

I agree, I don't like the term "Open Source", and I also try to avoid
using the term "Free". I like to use the term "Libre". There might be
OSI approved licenses that we might agree or disagree. We use GPL v3+.
Some colleagues might like it and some other might use BSD for their
projects. That is their choice and we should respect it the same way we
want them to respect ours.

> 
> I suggest that GNU health moves back to savannah, it isn't too late to
> do this.  

GNU Health is still in Savannah. Mailing lists, bugs, tasks, news, file
releases are in place and operational.

> What needs to be done for this to happen?

This is the deal... If by tomorrow we have the repositories in GNU, I
will set the newly created repositories at OSDN as read-only
Here is the list of repositories:
https://osdn.net/projects/gnu-health/scm/

This deadline is not capricious. Reverting this decision supposes a big
effort for me and for the community. Because of the history of the
project and the relation with GNU, I am willing to give it one more try,
but we can not halt the project development. At the end of the day, it
takes two to tango.

We need the freedom to manage our computing resources at GNU.org.
It's ironic, but we're failing on the very concept that we want the
community to follow, the freedom to manage their computing resources.

For instance, we should, as project administrators, have shell access to
create and manage the needed resources, or an alternative that won't
require us having to ask the GNU sysadmins to do it for us. Requesting
help from sysadmins should be a last resort, in case of emergency. The
management of our projects should be done by ourselves.

> 
>    I even asked in the meantime to manually create some additional
>    repositories, but I never got an answer.
> 
> Did you remind them?  It might be that they simply missed it.

How many times? I asked to sysadmin to create the repos, then I was
re-directed to Savannah hackers, start from zero again, to reach this
dead-end, where I had no other choice than to host the repositories
outside GNU.org 

I feel awkward asking for things over and over again. I don't want to
bother anyone.
> 
>    Here is the news:
>    https://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=9874
> 
> You are using the word ecosystem -- something that lacks any kind of
> ethical or moral judgment -- to describe GNU Health, it is a word best
> to avoid in describing free software and GNU projects.  See
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Ecosystem .

I strongly disagree, and I kindly ask to please remove this wrong,
pejorative, and reductionist interpretation of the term ecosystem from
GNU.org site. It is completely out of place.

I often explain the importance of collaboration and cooperation among
diverse actors, and what I call "collective freedom" as the main
driving force for evolution in our societies. In this context, GNU
Health is a digital health ecosystem.

Ironically, many in the Libre software community are influenced by
the anthropocentric, selfish and competitive vision of this world. The
vision of the human being superior to other species and the
competition-driven, capitalist society have made this planet a trash
bin, a daily Treblinka to many species and an ever increasing social
gap and exclusion. 


Best,
Luis