Re: [GNU-linux-libre] FreeSlack -> Freenix transition is done, awaiting review

[bill-auger]

On Thu, 19 Jul 2018 10:52:18 -0700 Ivan wrote:
> It makes zero sense to duplicate the documentation

On Thu, 19 Jul 2018 10:52:18 -0700 Ivan wrote:
> Our wiki, which is the main source of documentation:

if the distro is technically identical to slackware then why would an entire 
wiki be required to document it? - one would expect that the documentation that 
is relevenat only to freenix but is not relevenat to slackware would be minimal 
(perhaps a single mission statement page of the main site) - so why not just 
refer users to the slackware documentation for everything?

if there is any conflict with the FSDG in this, i dont think it is the 
confusion of affiliation, but the directing of users to a website that hosts 
non-free software

a counter-point could be made that it is better to provide documentation as 
complete as possible on the distro's own infrastructure to avoid referring 
users to the slackware site for any reason



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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] [gnu.org #1308285] add uruk gnu/linux to free list

[bill-auger]

On Thu, 19 Jul 2018 05:47:03 -0700 Jason wrote:
> There may be a misunderstanding then Thérèse; the GNU Webmastering
> Guidelines had never asked for the Webmasters themselves to write to
> the list. https://www.gnu.org/server/standards/#distros

i was referring to step #2 of the new procedure steps on the "Incoming Distros" 
wiki article

1) The process begins with an application sent to  for an 
initial review. ...
2) Once the webmasters have completed their initial check, they will send the 
distro to the Workgroup for fully free GNU/Linux distributions mailing list for 
a full review.
3) Each distro at this point will be assigned an "application manager", ...

clearly, the confusion here is rooted in the ambiguity of: "they will send the 
distro to the Workgroup" - there is surely little confidence or noise reduction 
in the distro itself writing to the mailing list declaring: "GNU said so ..." - 
even if a reference to a GNU webmaster ticket is supplied, it is not verifiable 
AFAIK because that is not a public issue tracker - i would suggest that the GNU 
server standards and step #2 of the evanluation protocol be ammended to 
explicitly require the GNU webmaster who gave the initial approval to confirm 
that to this mailing list using a gnu.org email address - surely that is not 
too much extra to ask for the sake of rigour

and i do wish people would stop throwing the "beureacratic" around - the 
purpose of the new procedure is to ensure that all distros are given fair 
treatment in a verifiable way by eliminating any blind spots that could invite 
suspicion of favoritism or discrimination - so if the GNU webmasters are to 
play an official role in this, then their decisions should be verifiable - yes? 
- if not, then there is hardly any reason for their involvement


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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] [gnu.org #1308285] add uruk gnu/linux to free list

[John Sullivan]

"Therese Godefroy via RT"  writes:

> Hi John,
>
> On Thu Jul 19 15:40:58 2018, johns wrote:
> [...]
>> GNU webmasters have been very helpful in the past on this, and we'd
>> appreciate the same process being used going forward.
>> 
>> -john
>
> The matter is not whether webmasters are helping people who
> are supposed to evaluate distros, but whether the evaluation procedure is 
> helping the teams who are trying to build them.
> From what I have read, this procedure looks like an obstacle
> course in a dead-end street. Not very helpful for the
> prospective free distro maintainers.

Hyperbole won't help here. We just revamped and recommitted to the
distro evaluation process on this list recently. Did you read that
discussion?

We need to give time for the changes we made to work, and not disrupt
things with other changes.

The webmasters screening the initial requests is important to preserving
the signal to noise ratio on this list, which will help review move
along in a more organized fashion, which in turn will help get distros
that should be endorsed, endorsed.

-john

-- 
John Sullivan | Executive Director, Free Software Foundation
GPG Key: A462 6CBA FF37 6039 D2D7 5544 97BA 9CE7 61A0 963B
https://status.fsf.org/johns | https://fsf.org/blogs/RSS

Do you use free software? Donate to join the FSF and support freedom at
.

[GNU-linux-libre] [gnu.org #1308285] add uruk gnu/linux to free list

[Therese Godefroy via RT]

Hi John,

On Thu Jul 19 15:40:58 2018, johns wrote:
[...]
> GNU webmasters have been very helpful in the past on this, and we'd
> appreciate the same process being used going forward.
> 
> -john

The matter is not whether webmasters are helping people who
are supposed to evaluate distros, but whether the evaluation procedure is 
helping the teams who are trying to build them.
>From what I have read, this procedure looks like an obstacle
course in a dead-end street. Not very helpful for the
prospective free distro maintainers.

Best regards,
Thérèse

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] [gnu.org #1308285] add uruk gnu/linux to free list

[John Sullivan]

The Webmaster README is correct:

> Links to free GNU/Linux distributions

> Suggestions for links to GNU/Linux distributions should be handled like this:

> The requestors should be the primary developers of the distro, not
> just users. If they are users, thank them and ask them to contact
> the developers in case they want to be listed.

> Briefly check that the distro is a feasible candidate: they should
> have a clear policy of only including free software, and it should
> be reasonably apparent how to get the sources and what packages are
> included. If these things are not present, talk to the requestor
> about it (politely).

> If there are no glaring problems, ask the requestors to request an
> endorsement from the dedicated mailing list
> . They should include a description of
> their new distro, a link to their home page, and any other useful
> info. Our ticket should then be resolved.

> FYI: the gnu-linux-libre list will take over from there. In essence,
> they will review it in detail for meeting our criteria, and if all
> seems good, pass it on to the FSF licensing person for final
> approval.

> In any event, webmasters should never simply add new distros that are
> said to be free to our list. FSF licensing and RMS must explicitly
> approve any addition

GNU webmasters have been very helpful in the past on this, and we'd 
appreciate the same process being used going forward. 

-john

-- 
John Sullivan | Executive Director, Free Software Foundation
GPG Key: A462 6CBA FF37 6039 D2D7 5544 97BA 9CE7 61A0 963B
https://status.fsf.org/johns | https://fsf.org/blogs/RSS

Do you use free software? Donate to join the FSF and support freedom at
.

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] FreeSlack -> Freenix transition is done, awaiting review

[Ivan Zaigralin]

Bah, links got mangled somehow.

Our wiki, which is the main source of documentation:
https://freenix.net/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=start

And our forum: https://freenix.net/forum/


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[GNU-linux-libre] [gnu.org #1308285] add uruk gnu/linux to free list

[Therese Godefroy via RT]

Hello Jean,

On Thu Jul 19 13:22:21 2018, bugs@gnu.support wrote:
[...]
> This matter would really be easily solved if there
> would be ONE responsible person doing the job.
[...]

Yes, that would be much better.

And there is no good reason to involve webmasters in the
process. In the last 6 months AFAIR, we had 2 irrelevant requests,
2 requests from Uruk users, and 2 from Ali himself. Getting
rid of the irrelevant requests took about 10 min each. I
think the gnu-linux-libre mailing list can handle this much
spam.

Best regards,
Thérèse

[GNU-linux-libre] FreeSlack -> Freenix transition is done, awaiting review

[Ivan Zaigralin]

Hi everyone!

We publicized the distribution/project name change from FreeSlack to Freenix, 
and our
websites are all  Freenixy now. Some notes to reviewers:

Things like names of files are left alone for the current stable (14.2) but 
will be thoroughly
rebranded wherever appropriate in the next stable release.

A lilo screen with branding supplied via Wiki is still old style, but it is not 
supplied during the
installation anyway, requiring 100% manual install, and will be updated for the 
next release as
well.

There are a couple of links from our wiki to Slackware documentation, like this 
place for
example:

http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:beginners_guide#switch_to_a_generic_kernel

It makes zero sense to duplicate the documentation, since our project is dead 
set on
keeping the technical details identical to Slackware as much as possible, 
allowing us not to
fork support. We don't see a problem with this,
but if the consensus is that it may be confusing, we can publish a disclaimer 
about no
affiliation, and how users should be wary of the possibility that non-free 
software is mentioned
there (we are not aware of such an instance, but we have no control over that 
wiki).

Our wiki, which is the main source of documentation:
https://freenix.net/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=start[1]

And our forum: https://freenix.net/forum/[2]

Please let us know if you see anything else that requires our attention.

On Friday, March 23, 2018 15:29:11 you wrote:
> On Thu Mar 22 14:47:00 2018, melik...@melikamp.com[3] wrote:
> > Sounds fantastic. Freenix is our first choice. To sweeten the deal, we
> > are
> > fully prepared to move the distro front to freenix.net, already nabbed
> > by
> > Matt. This might potentially take a long time, but is definitely
> > something we
> > would like to do.
>
> Excellent, I got the all clear from RMS for the name Freenix along with the
> moving to freenix.net. While you make the switch, I'll take one last pass
> just to make sure there are no other issues, which I don't expect to find,
> and then we can talk about coordinating the announcement. Thanks again for
> being understanding; I'm trying to make this process better and you working
> together with me on it is very helpful.
>
> --
> Sincerely,
>
> Donald R. Robertson, III, J.D.
> Licensing & Compliance Manager
> Free Software Foundation
> 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor
> Boston, MA 02110, USA
> Phone +1-617-542-5942
> Fax +1-617-542-2652 ex. 56



[1] https://freenix.net/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=start
[2] https://freenix.net/forum/
[3] mailto:melik...@melikamp.com


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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] [gnu.org #1308285] add uruk gnu/linux to free list

[Jean Louis]

On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 11:20:33AM -0400, Therese Godefroy via RT wrote:
> On Thu Jul 19 08:46:19 2018, js...@gnu.org wrote:
> > There may be a misunderstanding then Thérèse;
> 
> If there was a misunderstanding, it was not on my part. Please
> check my last message to Ali; I clearly told him he had to
> contact gnu-linux-libre himself. And if I remember correctly
> this is what he did one year ago, and again 6 months ago... to
> no avail. My dealings with this list had to do with another
> ticket. 

Maybe Ali is foreign and does not speak English.

This matter would really be easily solved if there
would be ONE responsible person doing the job.

Nobody takes this in the manner of a classic
sale. And that is exactly how these type of
inquiries shall be handled.

Instead of this mess of conversation, there shall
be one individal on side of FSF responsible to
welcome, greet, and help the new applicants for
free system distributions!

And that means, immediately putting the contact
information into the database, calling the
applicant, welcoming the applicant, giving him
necessary resources, downloading the distribution,
verifying the checklist, submitting timely the
work online on pages so that people can see the
progress, and so on, and so on until the
distribution is accepted or need corrections.

So that is the single problem here.

We say too many grandmothers, lazy will be the
grandchild.

Finally, THAT is the reason why GNU project
started, to have free software systems.

Now, there is somebody from Uruk, asking on a
mailing list, and nobody is really handling that
matter.

Guys, don't be bureaucratic.

Get some 50 cents and VoIP SIP account, call the
admin of Uruk GNU/Linux, contact by email, do your
best, assign one person to do the checklist and
have somebody do the final evaluation.

Jean

[GNU-linux-libre] [gnu.org #1308285] add uruk gnu/linux to free list

[Therese Godefroy via RT]

On Thu Jul 19 08:46:19 2018, js...@gnu.org wrote:
> There may be a misunderstanding then Thérèse;

If there was a misunderstanding, it was not on my part. Please
check my last message to Ali; I clearly told him he had to
contact gnu-linux-libre himself. And if I remember correctly
this is what he did one year ago, and again 6 months ago... to
no avail. My dealings with this list had to do with another
ticket. 

> the GNU Webmastering
> Guidelines had never asked for the Webmasters themselves to write to
> the list. https://www.gnu.org/server/standards/#distros
> #3 has that the requestor (not the Webmasters) write to the list after
> the Webmasters have verified (in #1) that the people requesting are the
> primary developers and (in #2) briefly checked that the distro is a
> feasible candidate.

Why don't you write this clearly in the webmastering guidelines?

> > By the way, I wonder what webmasters have to do in this 
> > process, except acting as spam filter.
> 
> That is effectively it, yes: To make sure that the people asking for
> the endorsement are the right people, since only the primary developers
> can request endorsement -- the users of the distro should be referred
> back to the primary developers -- and to filter out distros that
> clearly (based on only a brief examination) won't qualify.

And this too. It may be useful to explain what you mean by "a brief
examination".

Best,
Thérèse
 

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] [gnu.org #1308285] add uruk gnu/linux to free list

[Jason Self]

There may be a misunderstanding then Thérèse; the GNU Webmastering
Guidelines had never asked for the Webmasters themselves to write to
the list. https://www.gnu.org/server/standards/#distros
#3 has that the requestor (not the Webmasters) write to the list after
the Webmasters have verified (in #1) that the people requesting are the
primary developers and (in #2) briefly checked that the distro is a
feasible candidate.

> By the way, I wonder what webmasters have to do in this 
> process, except acting as spam filter.

That is effectively it, yes: To make sure that the people asking for
the endorsement are the right people, since only the primary developers
can request endorsement -- the users of the distro should be referred
back to the primary developers -- and to filter out distros that
clearly (based on only a brief examination) won't qualify.

[GNU-linux-libre] [gnu.org #1308285] add uruk gnu/linux to free list

[Therese Godefroy via RT]

On Wed Jul 18 23:32:31 2018, bill-auger@peers.community wrote:
> GNU webmaster - can you please confirm the quoted message below

I confirm.
 
> according to the new distro evaluation protocol, the GNU webmaster is
> expected to write to this 'gnu-linux-libre' list confirming the
> graduation to the community evaluation stage - i will CC this message
> to webmast...@gnu.org

The last thread about Uruk on gnu-linux-libre@ was in January 2018.
It was in the middle of a very fuzzy discussion about unmaintained
distros, so you may have overlooked Ali's messages.

>From what I can see on Uruk's website, this distro is alive and well,
and claims to be entirely free. Checking whether it is really free is
your job, not the webmasters'.

By the way, I wonder what webmasters have to do in this process,
except acting as spam filter.

Best,
Thérèse

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