Absurd rules of upstream sites [LWN.net]

Absurd rules of upstream sites

Posted Oct 2, 2008 1:42 UTC (Thu) by tseaver (subscriber, #1544)
In reply to: Absurd rules of upstream sites by JoeBuck
Parent article: Ubuntu debuts its Upstream Report

> The policy I was talking about only affects links: an FSF site isn't
> supposed to link to a page that promotes proprietary software.

Let's get specific. Here is a Launchpad bug page for Zope (the bug is assigned to me):

https://bugs.launchpad.net/zope2/+bug/143422

In what way does that page "promote proprietary software"? Its entire purpose is to help improve a piece of *free* software (Zope); the only mentions of Launchpad are the home page link (the logo at the top), and a "Help us improve Launchpad" link at the very bottom.

The report contains valuable information, including a patch, about a bug in an application I help maintain. Rejecting a link to this page because LP happens to be closed would be a ludicrously irresponsible policy. Making the report and patch inaccessible to the maintainers of a putative upstream application which applied such a policy would be a disservice both to the maintainers and to the users of the software.

Note that I *do* wish LP were opened up, as I believe its value would be increased. I *don't* think rejecting a link to a bugreport in LP would be sane: it would actively harm the free software ecosystem.

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Absurd rules of upstream sites

Posted Oct 2, 2008 17:41 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

Launchpad is itself proprietary software. I didn't make the rule, I'm just telling you what the rule is. Directing someone to Launchpad is seen by the FSF as promoting Launchpad.

Canonical has promised to free Launchpad, and when they do, this issue will be moot.