Savannah pending project update

[Paul Fisher]

We've set up a temporary announcement-only Mailman list to keep users
informed of pending Savannah project creations.

Below is a message from Bradley Kuhn regarding the current status of
new project creation on Savannah:


As you may already know, the savannah system (which hosts
savannah.gnu.org and savannah.nongnu.org) was cracked late last year.
As we investigated this crack, we discovered many security flaws in
the configuration of the system and in the savannah software itself.
FSF staff, with the help of volunteers, have worked diligently to
bring the savannah services back online, while plugging the security
holes so that the system is unlikely to be cracked again.

These necessary changes to the savannah software has rendered many
subsections of the savannah process non-functional.  Included in the
set of non-functioning components is the new project approval process,
since it, more than any other subsystem, does the most amount of
manipulation to the savannah database and filesystem.

We have a long task list of items to repair on savannah.  We
unfortunately don't have the staff resources to complete them quickly,
especially since the our IT staff of two people is also responsible
for handling all other GNU and FSF infrastructure, including the email
systems, web servers, FTP servers, shell access, and FSF office
systems.  We therefore cannot give a definitive date when we expect
new project approval for savannah.nongnu.org will again be functional.

We certainly understand that in the meantime, you may need to host
your project elsewhere; we don't expect you to wait indefinitely for
our system to be fully functional.  Once it is, though, we'd be happy
to offer our assistance to import your project from another site.  In
the meantime, please watch the news items on savannah.nongnu.org for
updates regarding the reinstatement of savannah's services.

We appreciate the patience and moral support the Free Software
community has shown us.  Our goal is to make sure that each and every
service offered by savannah assures the highest degree of data
integrity and system security.  The source code to our Free Software
is a central component of what makes our community possible, and we
must be diligent in making sure that no one with malicious intent can
impede the process of free exchange and sharing of that source code.
While these diligent efforts are causing all of us great inconvenience
now, I hope that you agree with us that integrity of the Free Software
development process must be the top priority.

Thanks for you patience, and please do get in touch if you'd like to
help us as a volunteer on savannah.

Sincerely,

Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Free Software Foundation