Re: [Health-dev] GNU Health in Github

[Luis Falcon]

Dear Oscar, dear community

On Mon, 22 Jan 2018 11:01:46 -0500
Oscar Alvarez <address@hidden> wrote:

> On 19/01/18 09:15, Luis Falcon wrote:
> > Hi Oscar, Mario, Community !
> >
> > On Thu, 18 Jan 2018 12:47:15 -0300
> > Mario Castro Squella <address@hidden> wrote:
> >  
> >> I think Mr. Stallman has answered this question elsewhere before:
> >> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/discuss-gnustep/2015-12/msg00168.html
> >> <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/discuss-gnustep/2015-12/msg00168.html>
> >> Mario Castro Squella Ingeniero de Software | Registrar SW
> >> <http://www.registrar.cl/> +56 9 9702 8116  
> 
> I know see technical reasons for does not uses Github, I think that 
> Stallman says is respectable, but it is not the last word, it says
> that  private company are evil!!, 

No, no. None of us have said that private companies are evil. What I
say is that I feel much safer hosting GNU Health under the Free
Software Foundation, a non-profit organization that shares my
philosophy and GNU Health project philosophy, rather than in a *any*
private company.

A longer explanation from Stallman is here, and following threads:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/discuss-gnustep/2015-12/msg00182.html

I keep on stressing the fact that GNU Health is a *social movement*.
I'd like to bring up to the attention what I wrote in the
introduction of the GNU Health Code of Conduct
(https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Health/Code_of_Conduct)

        "GNU Health is, first and foremost, a social project to bring
        freedom and equity in health care around the World. GNU Health
        involves much more than just technology"

Stallman says something quite similar about the GNU project:

        "The purpose of the GNU system is to give users freedom.  This
        goal is ethical in nature, not technical."

Also, keep in mind that GNU Health is an official GNU project, thus, we
should be mindful. Richard Stallman and the FSF have done so much good
to the society, that I think that, we should respect his advice of
where to host or not to host the repositories. 


> 
> > Agree with Mario and Stallman. I believe that Savannah has a great
> > environment for development of GNU Health
> >
> > 1) It belongs to the FSF and the community, not to a private
> > company. Probably this is the most important one.
> >
> > 2) We've been hosting GNU Health there since 2011, and so far, no
> > problems.  

> Luis, IMHO yes there is a problem, I think missing more developers, 
> translators and testers, 

I don't see it as a problem, although I agree with you that the more
people aboard, the better. But we need serious, long time commitment and
people lined-up with our philosophy of "people before profit".

Every once in a while someone shows up asking for developer access, and
after a couple of days / weeks, he or she disappears... wasting our
time and resources. Most of the time those people are just speculators
who care just about themselves. Not good.

> simply passing this project to bitbucket or 
> github will explosively increase the collaborating community
> because I have found many more bugs than should exist and this
> occurrs because missing help,solve bugs and discuss them is easier in
> Github, Savannah require knows another plattform, that little number
> of developers wants to know.

That's where I disagree. I believe that what makes the difference is
the motivation of people, not whether is Savannah, Github or
SourceForge.

They might help in different extent, but I would say that it will be
small in comparison to the people genuine interest in making a change.

By the way, and as I mentioned in previous mail, should we use
Sourceforge as the community platform and  Savannah as the official ?

Any other suggestion is most welcome !

> Luis, you have a nice and good project but there are missing hands
> that help us, you can not save the world alone :|

We are a community, working side by side in many different aspects with
a unique goal, make healthcare and health informatics universal. As our
motto says "Freedom and Equity in Healthcare"

There are so many people and things around GNU Health today. So many
projects around the world. As an example, take a look at the latest
GNUHealthCon

http://gnuhealthcon.org/2017-las_palmas/

You can see a great crowd of colleagues from across continents. From
nurses to experts in bioinformatics; from computer scientists to
physicians; from multilateral organizations to Universities.

That is the GNU Health community.  

Let me know your thoughts and thank you for your feedback !

Best,
Luis