Re: [Savannah-users] what are the usefulness criteria for submitted code?

[john smith]

Dear Thomas Harding,

I would like to address your concerns, but in order to give a meaningful
reply I first need you to clarify one thing for me:

Are you a mere *user* of the Savannah hosting, using it as a platform to
share your own projects, such as "PHP code128 barcode", or are you a
contributor to the Savannah project proper?  In other words, are you
affiliated with the Savannah project? Yet another way to answer my question
is to see if you can answer "yes" to any of the following:

Do you have access to the Savannah project infrastructure which is above
that of a mere user? Are you responsible for any part of day-to-day
operations of the Savannah hosting service? Are you responsible for any
part of the code review process, which results in decisions to
accept/reject/suspend/revoke hosted projects? Are you responsible for the
design and implementation of Savannah project policies, or the overall
vision for the Savannah project?

On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 6:10 AM, Thomas Harding <address@hidden>
wrote:

>
> You should split your project by tasks, as most likely no one would
> /another/ bunch script set especially for sysadmin task.
>
> And wonder for each one if it is /generally/ useful, flexibile enough, etc.
>
> If you look at any administrative interface, she most likely rely on one
> distribution and depends on a programs/versions set. It have to be
> integrated.
>
>
>
>
> Le 1 mars 2017 02:57:03 GMT+01:00, john smith <address@hidden>
> a écrit :
> >Dear Savannah hackers,
> >
> >My name is Ivan Zaigralin, and my email is address@hidden I am
> >using this gmail
> >account because messages sent to this list from my own domain seem to
> >disappear into
> >a black hole.
> >
> >I am currently in the process of submitting a project to the non-GNU
> >part
> >of Savannah. I seem
> >to have hit an unexpected barrier: unexpected to me, but may be that's
> >just
> >because my
> >expectations were out of line with reality, so I hope you can help me
> >to
> >resolve this issue.
> >
> >What I submitted was ~ 120 KiB of bash code + licensing information. To
> >my
> >surprise, my
> >submission is not being accepted, and the reasons stated I will simply
> >quote:
> >
> >"These are person-specific scripts"
> >
> >"It doesn't seem to me that they could be generally useful."
> >
> >"Yes, this is my opinion that doesn't coincide with yours."
> >
> >"All this makes sense for personal scripts, but not for general use.
> >They
> >are just not written with
> >such use in mind."
> >
> >"I don't think there are real objective criteria for things like e.g.
> >simplistic package. We have to
> >use our judgement."
> >
> >I want to draw your attention specifically to the fact that the
> >reviewer is
> >using nothing but his
> >subjective judgment in order to decide whether my submission is
> >"generally
> >useful". I also want
> >to make it absolutely clear, I have no complaints about this particular
> >reviewer, and nothing in
> >this post should be interpreted as a criticism of that person or any of
> >his
> >actions so far.
> >
> >The reason I find this surprising is this: FSF endorses Savannah as a
> >"hosting service":
> >
> >"There are many services that will host your project's source code"
> >
> >"Savannah is a community project, providing code hosting for your free
> >software project"
> >
> >This endorsement is explicit in claiming that Savannah will host *my*
> >project, which I
> >understand as me preserving the creative control over the code I
> >submit.
> >
> >To contrast, the GNU project does and should make subjective calls as
> >to
> >what constitutes
> >useful GNU software, just as the KDE project members make subjective
> >calls
> >as to what
> >constitutes contributions useful to KDE. This makes sense because these
> >are
> >software
> >projects, and when I submit code to them from the outside, it is
> >implied
> >that they have the
> >creative control (or at least a greater share of it), and will make
> >subjective calls in line with their
> >unique and subjective vision of what their project should be and how it
> >should get there. Most
> >such projects also have very detailed descriptions of their subjective
> >visions; for example, KDE
> >is defined as "advanced graphical desktop, a wide variety of
> >applications
> >for communication,
> >work, education and entertainment and a platform to easily build new
> >applications upon", and
> >much much much more, which really narrows down the scope of the
> >project,
> >and makes it
> >perfectly clear that only the code implementing that vision will be
> >accepted. There is also
> >absolutely no surprise when senior members of the KDE team, who share
> >the
> >creative control
> >over their project, reject code based on their personal and subjective
> >notions of quality and/or
> >usability.
> >
> >So I was taken aback, to be frank, when I was told by the reviewer that
> >my
> >project is not
> >accepted based on nothing but personal and subjective criteria having
> >to do
> >with general
> >usefulness. After a lengthy inquiry, I still cannot locate any official
> >Savannah description of any
> >usefulness tests applied to submissions. I was fully expecting
> >objective
> >criteria (besides
> >licensing), such minimal & maximal size in bytes, but I cannot find any
> >listed anywhere.
> >Indeed, I cannot even find any official subjective criteria, which
> >would
> >make sense if Savannah
> >was in fact a software project. So it looks to me like my submission is
> >being held up based on
> >a personal subjective usefulness test which was applied to my project
> >only,
> >effectively singling
> >it out. So with the information I have now, the only way to interpret
> >what
> >is happening is that
> >Savannah is de facto a software project, whereas Savannah hackers
> >assume a
> >share of creative control right from the start, from the moment of
> >submission.
> >
> >Just like any community project, Savannah is fully entitled to make the
> >rules, but as an FSF
> >member I see an issue with endorsing Savannah as a "hosting service",
> >unless it actually is a
> >hosting service in a manner I described above, which brings me to my
> >questions for the
> >Savannah community:
> >
> >Does or does not the Savannah project demand, allow, or abide by
> >filtering/censoring/rejecting
> >projects based solely on subjective opinions of its members (Savannah
> >hackers)? If yes, what
> >is the goal for such practice? If no, does the Savannah project
> >expressly
> >forbid such practices
> >internally?
> >
> >Thanks for your time :)
> >
> >References:
> >
> >FSF endorsement: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/savannah
> >My Savannah submission: https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?14370
>
> --
> Envoyé de mon appareil Android avec K-9 Mail. Veuillez excuser ma brièveté.
>