taskSavannah Administration - Tasks: task #5863, Submission of secure democracy

 
 

task #5863: Submission of secure democracy

Submitter:  Jos H. Boersema <joshb>
Submitted:  Thu 31 Aug 2006 03:02:03 PM UTC
   
 
Should Start On:  Thu 31 Aug 2006 12:00:00 AM UTC Should be Finished on:  Sun 10 Sep 2006 12:00:00 AM UTC
Category:  Project Approval Priority:  * 5 - Normal
Status:  Cancelled Privacy:  Public
Assigned to:  sp Open/Closed:  Closed
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Fri 17 Aug 2007 09:57:41 PM UTC, comment #7: 

Hi Jos,

If you want your softare to be part of GNU, check http://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html

The GNU Evaluation Team, not Savannah, is handling this :)

Sylvain Beucler <Beuc>
Wed 13 Jun 2007 01:11:47 PM UTC, comment #6: 

Hi GNU,

We've discussed whether to start verification/admission into
GNU, and I suggested to wait until sede was moved to Bash-shell
(from Zshell). Now I have reconsiddered: could we start the
verification/admission process, so that I get an idea of
whether sede will be admitted into GNU and make the move to
Bash-shell a worthwhile effort ? Just take into account that
I will move it to Bash if it is admitted to GNU, I have already
started with that move.


regards,
jos

Jos H. Boersema <joshb>
Sat 16 Sep 2006 03:26:42 PM UTC, comment #5: 

Hi,

I am (more then) willing to make any needed changes, to secure
the program properly under the GPL (etc) without any possible
ambiguities. Thanks for making this easy...

GNU.FREE is a already an official GNU democracy program:
http://directory.fsf.org/gnu.free.html

About the copyright: I would like the program to be safe under
its free license(s), and do whatever needed for that goal. If
it's needed that the GPL is occaisionally upgraded, then it
is possibly needed to upgrade the program license. I wonder how
this would be possible if I'm not doing it. If the FSF has
copyright, it could presumably release new versions under new
upgrades of the license (?). I've found a link on this:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCAssignCopyright
I want to assign copyright to the FSF, but I wonder what that
means for my own copyright position. Will I effectively lose
copyright, will it be shared copyright ("both must agree to
changes"), or independent copyright ("both can do whatever they
want"). Option 1 I don't like much, options 2 and 3 are OK.

I will post a notice when the changes have been made.

Jos Boersema

PS I think you are very quick with your responces. If this takes
a whole year to decide, I do not mind at all. Take your time,
no pressure. It will probably make for better decisions in the
end. I have been writing this for years, and will be for years
(hopefully). A year more or less doesn't mean anything.

Jos H. Boersema <joshb>
Fri 15 Sep 2006 09:44:44 PM UTC, comment #4: 

Hi,

I'm sorry this took so long, but I'm now re-evaluating the project you submitted for approval in Savannah.
There are some problems I've found and these problems need fixing before we
can approve your submission.


First of all, the address of the FSF has changed, and is now:

  51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA

Please update your license notices.

Please update the copy of the license (usually, the 'COPYING' file) in your package as well.

Updated versions of the GPL, LGPL and GFDL can also be found at:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.txt
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.txt

You can find some background and a possible migration script at https://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=3766


Second thing I noticed is, that the license does not contain the last section, titled "How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs".

Please use a complete verbatim copy of the license, which may be found at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.txt or http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.txt.

The license must be copied verbatim and in its entirety.


Another thing that needs fixing is described below:

In order to release your project properly and unambiguously under the GNU GPL, please place copyright notices and permission-to-copy statements at the beginning of every copyrightable file, usually any file more than 10 lines long.

For more information, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html.

If some of your files cannot carry such notices (e.g. binary files), then you can add a README file in the same directory containing the copyright and license notices. Check http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Notices.html for further information.

The GPL FAQ explains why these procedures must be followed.  To learn why a copy of the GPL must be included with every copy of the code, for example, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhyMustIInclude.


About your second point:

I'm somehow intersted on what GNU.FREE is, as I don't know anything about it. This is not related to the processing of your submission, but rather a question out of interest.


Now something on your fourth point, about assigning a co-copyright to the FSF:

I'm afraid I can't give you a straight answer on that, but I've contacted the people who are able to provide both you and me with information on that topic.
However, I'd really like you to make the other changes needed meanwhile and I will of course inform you about any information I get regarding this point.


If you are willing to make the changes mentioned above, please provide us with an URL to an updated tarball of your project.  Upon review, we will reconsider your project for inclusion in Savannah.

To help us better keep track of your registration, please use the tracker's web interface following the link below. Do not reply directly, the registration process is not driven by e-mail, and we will not receive such replies.

Regards.

Stephan Peijnik <sp>
Thu 14 Sep 2006 04:47:00 PM UTC, comment #3: 

Hello Stephan

I have released sede under "the GNU GPL version 2, or (at your
option) any later version." The new package is uploaded, all
mentioning of licenses should have been changed (incl. site).

Best regards,
Jos Boersema

Jos H. Boersema <joshb>
Mon 11 Sep 2006 06:07:18 PM UTC, comment #2: 

Hello Stephan Peijnik,

I'll work through your points:

1. Huge delay.
   Don't worry, I am not in any rush.

2. Project sites on sourceforge.net and savannah.
   I don't want to have the project on both sites. Currently
   the project is only maintained on my local machine, and has
   2 web mirrors.  One of those is on sourceforge, the other
   on my homepage. There is no real "project site", where
   multiple developers upload changes.  If sede is admitted to
   GNU/savannah, the "project site" where changes are uploaded
   into CVS (etc), would become the GNU/savannah location.
   The site on sourceforge.net would remain a web-mirror, what
   it is now.  The main site would be GNU/savannah (GNU.FREE
   seems to do something similar, BTW). Normally I wouldn't
   care to have multiple sites, but voters may be sensitive
   for one or the other (in terms of "where to download"). GNU
   is very political, some voters may prefer sourceforge to
   download a package, and point voters to. This is a reason
   to at least keep a complete web-mirror on sourceforge.

3. How do I plan to use the savannah account.
   I plan to use it for general maintenance, lists, I can
   initialize a CVS tree on GNU/savannah (have this local
   now), communicate with people interested in working on sede
   (if any, currently none).  I should perhaps note that sede
   is not community oriented development, but work oriented
   (donate results). But this may be a result of there only
   being one developer.

4. Would you agree to "version 2 or later"
   Yes. I was already thinking about doing this anyway. I've
   only ever seen version 2, but seeing version 3
   gives me enough confidence to trust the process
   (take the risk). Considder it done, even if sede is
   rejected. Besides, there is only one copyright-holder (me),
   so this is easy. To go further, I was thinking about making
   the FSF a co copyright-holder, if possible. Then the FSF
   and I could both release it under any copyright ? Is this
   possible ?

5. Please make changes, for new review...
   I will make the changes (version 2 or later), and put a
   comment here when done ...

best regards,
Jos Boersema

Jos H. Boersema <joshb>
Sun 10 Sep 2006 10:34:19 PM UTC, comment #1: 

Hi,

Most important thing first: sorry for the huge delay.

I'm evaluating the project you submitted for approval in Savannah. Whilst evaluating your submission I've found a few problems. You can find detailed descriptions of these problems below.


First of all, Savannah is a central point for development, distribution and
maintenance of GNU Software.

There is a companion site savannah.nongnu.org where we also host Free
Software projects that are not part of the GNU Project, but run on
free platforms.

However, we do not allow to host your project on Savannah and
SourceForge at the same time, if Savannah is just a project mirror.
Your project development should happen primarily on Savannah.

How do you plan to use your Savannah account?


Secondly, licensing under the "GNU GPL v2 only" is problematic.  Would you agree to license your project under the "GNU GPL v2 or later"?

The reason for this is that when we publish GPL v3, it will be important for all GPL-covered programs to advance to GPL v3. If you don't put this in the files now, the only way to port your program to GPL v3 would be to ask each and every copyright holder, and that may be very difficult.

To address your concerns, one can for sure say that the GPLv3 is not an attempt to make now free programs proprietary at all. After all, the GPLv3 is created in a community-driven process, where everyone is not only allowed to but welcome to comment on the license drafts. However, as the GPL itself says: (quoting) "9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new
versions of the General Public License from time to time.  Such new
versions will be similar in spirit to the present version[...]". This can be found in the license itself and this would probably also cause a non-copyleft GPL-successor to be hard to enforce.


If you are willing to make the changes mentioned above, please provide us with an URL to an updated tarball of your project.  Upon review, we will reconsider your project for inclusion in Savannah.

To help us better keep track of your registration, please use the tracker's web interface following the link below. Do not reply directly, the registration process is not driven by e-mail, and we will not receive such replies.

Regards.

Stephan Peijnik <sp>
Thu 31 Aug 2006 03:02:03 PM UTC, original submission:  

A new project has been registered at Savannah
This project account will remain inactive until a site admin approves or discards the registration.


REGISTRATION ADMINISTRATION


While this item will be useful to track the registration process, approving or discarding the registration must be done using the specific "Group Administration" page, accessible only to site administrators, effectively logged as site administrators (superuser):

  <https://savannah.nongnu.org/siteadmin/groupedit.php?group_id=8754>


REGISTRATION DETAILS


Full Name:
----------
  secure democracy

System Group Name:
-----------------
  sede

Type:
-----
  Official GNU software

License:
--------
  GNU General Public License V2 or later

Other License:
--------------
  The project is currently "GPL version 2 only". I did that
in order to be able to review new versions of the GPL. Any
organization can become corrupted, therefore I was concerned
that through infiltration and alteration of the GPL, the
program could suddenly become proprietary.

If this is really a big problem, I am prepared to go to
"version 2 or later", since the work on GPL3 seems not to be
a hostile hack. Please let me know. I may do this anyway.

Description:
------------
  http://www.xs4all.nl/~joshb/sede http://sede.sourceforge.net (mirror)

Sede is a democracy program. It works by giving each "registered
voter" a alphanumerical string of configurable length, which the
voter can combine with a vote, and comment. These combinations are
received back, verified with a database, and displayed back to all
voters. Add-ups of votes are included (weighted and non-weighted
is possible), any number of questions per ballot... well, I suppose
it is just as easy to check the website ?
A good location to get an idea is `menu' -> `example' -> `screenshots.html'.
Sede does not suffer from the problem that the Internet needs to
be redesigned to eliminate freedom and anonymity; rather it needs
the Internet to be free and anonymous. Sede therefore acts as a
safeguard for this freedom, rather then a threat. This program was
featured in BGW #52 (which unfortunately contained errors, see `where' -> `*)' if philosophical issues are an issue in approval (hope not)).
Sede has always wanted to emulate the GNU feel, and said so openly. I just didn't know I could apply to become a GNU project with it.
Sede is all GPL 2, with a view to go to GPL 3, it has no other Licenses. I have used gettext before, but it will take some time to make changes; changing the bracing isn't a problem. The program is mostly shell-scripts (being moved to Perl), using gettext will only make sense if something like it applies to Perl, if/when that is done.

I am very open to all suggestions for improvements (especially coming
from GNU!), however, all work will take its time, of course. Perhaps it is a good idea to wait some time before making this a GNU program, it is up to you.

Other Software Required:
------------------------
  Sede relies on the usual system progs like cat, ln, cp, mv, ls...
sed, ed, grep. And a few other backends: zsh. Mutt is used to send
attachments, but I'm not happy with that, it is too complex for the
task (IMHO).

Other Comments:
---------------
  I already mailed gnu@gnu.org, but no reply yet.


Jos H. Boersema <joshb>

 

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    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2007-02-23 sp StatusWait reply Cancelled
        Open/ClosedOpen Closed
    2006-09-10 sp StatusIn Progress Wait reply
    2006-09-04 sp StatusNone In Progress
        Assigned toNone sp

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