[Savannah-hackers] Re: [ 101947 ] Download area of AUCTeX has gone dead

[David Kastrup]

address@hidden writes:

> Support Request #101947, was updated on Wed 03/12/03 at 19:32
> You can respond by visiting: 
> http://savannah.gnu.org/support/?func=detailsupport&support_id=101947&group_id=11
> 
> Category: Download Area
> Status: Open
> Priority: 8
> Summary: Download area of AUCTeX has gone dead
> 
> By: yeupou
> Date: Thu 03/13/03 at 12:07
> Logged In: YES 
> user_id=1896
> Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.1; Linux 2.4.21-pre4; i686; fr, 
> address@hidden)
> 
> This links is dead because it's a link to your download area at 
> ftp.gnu.org, as your software is now a GNU package.

I was told in a mail when AUCTeX became GNU that I _could_ ask for
ftp.gnu.org to become a download area for my project if I wanted to.
I was not told that this change would be performed by force whether or
not I wanted to and whether or not I actually had a possibility to
access the ftp area.  While I _have_ asked for an account there to
that purpose, I have yet to receive a reply.  Please change your
default greeting for new GNU maintainers to something like "Your
previous download location will be made invalid.  Downloads will now
be redirected to the non-existing area designated on ftp.gnu.org for
your project.  If you don't have an account there, beg for it as fast
as you can in order to keep the inconvenience to your users to a
minimum" if that is the policy instead of just suggesting that one
_can_ use ftp.gnu.org as a doenload area.

> You should write to address@hidden to get access to ftp.gnu.org

I did so already some time ago, but have not received a reply yet.
Personally, I don't think that the order "point download area to a
dead link, then wait for the maintainer to complain and beg for an
account on ftp.gnu.org which would usually take in the order of weeks
to get processed" is the optimal way to switch a project to GNU
status.

BTW, I also was not notified that the web site had changed.  I just
noticed at some point of time that the old web site for AUCTeX was
redirected to a different one (I suppose I should be glad that it did
not just silently fail).

I know that all this is run by volunteers, but I think that there is
no really compelling reason to make the default procedures for getting
a GNU project rolling as self-defeating as that.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum