GForge: possible renaissance (hah!) for open-source SourceForge

Posted Dec 6, 2002 21:14 UTC (Fri) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943)
In reply to: GForge: possible renaissance (hah!) for open-source SourceForge by lolando
Parent article: GForge: possible renaissance for open-source SourceForge

Roland, I'm not a "reporter", but thank you for considering me one.

I'm just a sympathetic observer who has been sad to see the multi-way split among development teams, following the numerous confusing and non-helpful moves from VA Software Corp., when it took its codebase proprietary and then sent out the mixed signals alluded to earlier. I was also saddened to see people like Tim, among others, being prevented from assisting any of the open-source successors to alexandria, until legal obligations to their prior employers expired.

I'm sorry you feel slighted: The letter (not "article") could only cover a bit of territory within the space LWN could be reasonably expected to grant, and I had to rush to complete it before LWN's publication deadline. I'd love to have spent a week getting to know all of the existing forks better, but that would have conflicted with timeliness.

What I do know is Tim, the contribution he can make now that lawyers aren't obliging him to sit on his hands, and the junked-up VA codebase he has already subjected to some much-needed pruning as his first step. I'm therefore delighted that Debian-SF will be working with him -- and equally, that he will be working with you.

It is indeed true that Debian's package is based on 2.5. I checked the package listings. The fact that Debian-SF does most of its development on 2.6 (which I knew and alluded to briefly in my letter) doesn't make my statement inaccurate.

I'll also point out that my letter, in pointing to a possible "renaissance" of open-source development, did _not_ assert that it had "died".

And the "A key piece of open-source infrastructure is back" meant "back" as a thriving, unified project. Which I hope and expect will be happening, with the help of (among other things) mindshare, a matter I'll return to below.

You choke on "lost momentum"? Here, have a virtual glass of water. Yes, lost momentum. This was inevitable in the multi-way split that occurred, is a fact regardless of how long your changelog is, and mentioning it is in now way a slight on those who've been keeping Debian-SF, Savannah, and the others going for the last couple of years. I'm hoping that publicity and reunifying work will help regain that momentum -- publicity that I've been trying to help you get. You may be unaware that VA Software rejected Slashdot story submissions about the launch of GForge. I have been attempting to compensate for that by attempting to get the word out.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com