Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] openbravo about open

[Sylvain Beucler]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 07:13:05PM -0600, Karl Berry wrote:
>     I don't feel honest in turning down
>     a project just because of their name and the idea of open source when
>     previous projects were accepted. I could if an there was an
>     explanation. 
> 
> I understand your reluctance, but the explanation is that the previous
> acceptances are mistakes.  The last thing we want to do is perpetuate
> the mistake.

Savannah was launched around 2001 (and started contributing in
2004). Meanwhile several people joined and left, and Savannah
evolved. In particular, it started accepted non-GNU projects, and
refined the hosting requirements. When such refinement happened,
usually we do not reconsider existing projects, but we try to apply
the new requirements to all new projects. Sometimes we make mistakes
too.

The explanation for not accepting "open" is essentially
sv-problem-open-in-name:

  Savannah's mission is to host free software projects, and we want
  the public to think of them as free software projects.  A project
  name that says "open" will tend to lead people to think of the
  project as "open source" instead of "free software".

Using "OpenSomething" whenever you're starting a free software project
is definitely not a good habit, and it doesn't convey the important
values.

-- 
Sylvain