Mark Wielaard writes about improvements at Sourceware, the site that holds the repository for many projects in the GNU toolchain and beyond.
Sourceware.org has long hosted the repositories for many important free-software projects, including much of the GNU toolchain.
The overseers of the hosting server sourceware.org aka cygwin.org aka gcc.gnu.org aka (others *) invite the community to assist us...
We're pleased to report that SFC's Evaluations Committee has voted to accept Sourceware! The next step is to review the legal agreement:
https://sfconservancy.org/docs/sponsorship-agreement-template.pdf https://sfconservancy.org/docs/sponsorship-agreement-template.odt
We're in the middle of updating our template to improve it a little bit, but there are no substantive changes. The most important section is building the governance section 6, for which the template has various suggested structures.
We'd like to have a meeting where anyone can join and ask questions about the agreement or anything else about joining SFC. We'll be hosting 3 calls to let community members join when is best for them: 15:00 UTC Friday, 18:00 UTC Saturday and 17:00 UTC Monday on BigBlueButton. We'll post the links to this mailing list right before the calls.
Just for clarity since we heard about some confusion in backchannel: SFC is offering membership to the Sourceware hosting project itself, not to the guest projects that receive services *from* Sourceware. We are completely aware that, for example, the various GNU projects that receive services from Sourceware already have a fiscal sponsor — i.e., the FSF. We are not seeking to take those projects from the FSF, rather, to offer SFC's services to the Sourceware hosting platform itself.
We're glad to answer questions on this and anything else related at these sessions!
Thanks and see you there! -Pono
Last month the Sourceware overseers started a discussion with the projects hosted on Sourceware and the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) to become a Conservancy member project (which means Conservancy would become the fiscal sponsor of Sourceware). After many positive responses the SFC’s Evaluations Committee has voted to accept Sourceware.
"Shoting match" follows:
But when I said that at the end I also would like to discuss the recent Sourceware as Conservancy member project proposal and that I had asked both Conservancy and FSF members to call in to help with that discussion there was what felt like a shouting match. It was the first time I felt an in-person event was worse than an email discussion. Hopefully people will calm down and restart this discussion on the sourceware overseers list.
Hi Zoë,
On Fri, Sep 16, 2022 at 04:57:36PM -0400, Zoë Kooyman via Overseers wrote: > We are aware that several presentations will be given at > Cauldron this weekend proposing new ways to support the Sourceware > project and the GNU Toolchain packages hosted there. > > The FSF has been a fiscal sponsor to the GNU Toolchain for several > years (and continues to be), and has been grateful to have > Sourceware providing development infrastructure using free > software. Unfortunately, we won't have staff present at Cauldron, > but we are keeping up with the development of the various proposals > and talking with people involved, as well as seeing how we might be > able to offer support to help make good things happen. > > We want Sourceware and the GNU packages it hosts to have stable > homes and strong futures in freedom. We expect the conversations in > the next few days to be open and transparent and involving the > community, and look forward to discussing the best way(s) forward in > the coming weeks.
Thanks. I am really happy you are actively involved. I also want to thank Bradley and Karen from the SFC for calling into the discussion. But the discussion at Cauldron seemed really chaotic, I have trouble trying to summarize it. I posted my original discussion notes and first impressions here: https://gnu.wildebeest.org/blog/mjw/2022/09/18/sourceware-infrastructure-conservancy-gnu-toolchain-at-cauldron/
We agreed to continue the discussion on this mailinglist. Hopefully that will be a little more productive and structured.
Cheers,
Mark