Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] any need for a perl monger?

[Sylvain Beucler]

Hi,

Did you start something yet? :)

This is becoming more urgent and we'll need to work collaboratively no
this, so we need to share the code somehow (in the 'administration'
project maybe).

-- 
Sylvain

On Fri, Oct 03, 2008 at 12:13:19AM -0400, Steve Dickinson wrote:
> Sylvain Beucler wrote:
>> Cool!
>>
>>
>> First you need to get an idea of how the current moderation process works:
>> http://savannah.gnu.org/maintenance/HowToBecomeASavannahHacker
>>
>> The Savannah hosting requirements are described here:
>> http://savannah.gnu.org/maintenance/HowToGetYourProjectApprovedQuickly
>>
>> Registering a new project is done here:
>> http://savannah.gnu.org/register/
>>
>>
>> The goal is to take the submitted tarballs and apply the checks as
>> many HowToGetYourProjectApprovedQuickly checks as possible,
>> automatically and reliably.
>>
>> I think it would be good to get a report like:
>> [X] Checking license notice in headers: PASS
>> [ ] Checking valid copyright notice in headers: FAIL
>>     Info: copyright notice is missing
>> [ ] Refers to 'Linux' with 'GNU/' or 'kernel' in context: FAIL
>> ...
>>
>> Some other tests may need to be reviewed by a human but could be
>> prepared by the tool:
>>
>> [-] List of copyright holders (check that they refer to real persons,
>>     no nicknames, non-existing company name, etc.):
>>     Info: found
>>     - Sylvain Beucler (2005, 2007)
>>     - Steve Dickinson (2008)
>>     - MadCoder (2004)
>> (in which I'm supposed to ask the project submitter about 'MadCoder'
>> which looks like a pseudo)
>>
>> There are 2 tools that we should check:
>>
>> - fossology.org - which apparently checks existing license notices and
>>   check the compatibility of the licenses. (e.g. GPL + OpenSSL = BAD,
>>   GPL + mBSD = GOOD). I haven't looked at it much.
>>
>> - 'licensecheck' in Debian's devscripts, which can detect some
>>   licenses, and some issues:
>> src/bgm.c: GPL (v3 or later) src/gfx_utils.c: GPL (with incorrect FSF 
>> address) src/init.c: GPL src/SDL_rwops_zzip.c: UNKNOWN
>> src/vgasys_fon.c: LGPL (v2.1 or later) (it's written in Perl :))
>>
>>
>> To be clear, the main point of the tool is to make project moderation
>> less boring.  Our volunteers usually leave after a few months because
>> this isn't a very rewarding job.  In the beginning it's interesting to
>> learn about good licensing practices, license compatibility, but
>> quickly it becomes annoying the check the file headers, and even more
>> annoying to explain what to fix to the user.  A lot of project
>> submitters silently forsake their submission after the first reply,
>> which adds to the burden.
>>
>> Yet this is something that the GNU project asks us to do with the
>> projects we host, and it's our goal to teach people about these issues
>> (remember the SCO legal issues...).  So we want to do this job in a
>> manner that remains pleasant for both the users and us moderators :)
>>
>>
>> I think it would be good too if you reviewed a few projects yourself,
>> to better understand how it works. There are a LOT of pending projects
>> currently at
>> https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?group=administration&category_id=1&status_id=1&set=custom#results
>> so feel free to pick one and send me a review.
>>
>>
>> You can also join #savannah at FreeNode and discuss.
>>
>>   
> Thanks for all of the info Sylvain! I'll look it over and move forward  
> with it when I can asap.
> Thanks again!