Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] "or any later" clause mandatory?

[Sylvain Beucler]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 06:11:08PM +0100, Nicodemo Alvaro wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:40:34 +0100
> Sylvain Beucler <address@hidden> wrote:
> > The checkboxes are intended to be a _fast_ thing to read, which people
> > cannot miss. If you make a checkbox "I agree with the requirements",
> > pointing to a lenghty, canonical, all-corner-cases-covered, official
> > requirements text, then you can expect that 98% people won't read it
> > and will miss the essential points, a.k.a. the current checkboxes.
> 
> I agree that many people do not read long, boring documents, but isn't
> it still a massive problem that applicants are not complying with the
> checklist?

I'm afraid that people will sometimes try to submit the project
without doing the licensing clean-up, thinking "Are they _really_
gonna ask me to clean this up?  Trying without doesn't hurt".  I know
I would :) In this case we type sv-problem-gpl-info and that's it.

And, I don't think that shortening the check-list to 2 boxes will help
in that regard.  Maybe we could add "Yes, you need to fix it before we
approve your project."


> > What exactly is missing from 
> > http://savannah.gnu.org/register/requirements.php ?
> > I'd start fixing this page, if need be.
> 
> What I am hoping for is something that the reviewer can more easily
> refer to. In order to fix it in my strategy, that page needs to be
> precise, restructured, and simplified. So the document I sent was
> intended to help fix it.

The main issue I see with this numbered lists of items, is that
there's no explanation.  "Don't use open source" -> why?


> > Also, I don't think that stuff like "you need to test your
> > applications with a Free Java Suite" should be in the official
> > requirements. They are infered from "No dependencies on non-free
> > software".  Where do you see this belong?
> 
> I read it from the HowToGetYourProjectAppprovedQuickly document. Karl
> is worried about losing the information on the wiki, so it seemed like
> one of the things to include.

The wiki has incremental backups and itself keeps revision history. I
doubt we'll lose the information.


> ["GPL" <=> "GPLv<current> or later"?]

According to the GNU GPL, yes, but that's an unnecessary
uncertainty.  Let's ask users to stick to "GPLvX or later".

-- 
Sylvain