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sr #111226: Please change jcal repository and website owner

Submitter:  None
Submitted:  Sun 13 Apr 2025 01:31:36 PM UTC
   
 
Category:  Webpages repositories Priority:  5 - Normal
Severity:  3 - Normal Status:  Wont Do
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  ineiev
Originator Email:  -email is unavailable- Operating System:  GNU/Linux
Open/Closed:  Closed
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Tue 13 May 2025 03:30:55 PM UTC, comment #8: 


> Alright, much to my dismay, the current lead maintainer decided to go with Github instead. The new project has landed in Debian's repositories btw.


I see; closing the sr.

> If you're 100% sure you don't want us to take the repo and use it as a mirror,


I don't think that would make sense.  GitHub has an incomparably greater bandwidth and computing power than Savannah.

> we'd be much obliged if you could at least link the new repository in the project's homepage as an alternative


GitHub is hostile to free software.  The GNU Project generally avoids linking to it.

Ineiev <ineiev>
Site Administrator
Mon 12 May 2025 06:55:50 AM UTC, comment #7: 

Alright, much to my dismay, the current lead maintainer decided to go with Github instead. The new project has landed in Debian's repositories btw.

If you're 100% sure you don't want us to take the repo and use it as a mirror, we'd be much obliged if you could at least link the new repository in the project's homepage as an alternative: https://github.com/persiancal/jcal

Thanks again for hosting this project for all these years.

comment #6:

> Hello again,
>
> I just wanted to say that we're discussing the primary use of Savannah internally and that's why it's taking us long to respond. We'll let you know and thanks.

Hossein <hossein>
Sun 04 May 2025 07:33:41 AM UTC, comment #6: 

Hello again,

I just wanted to say that we're discussing the primary use of Savannah internally and that's why it's taking us long to respond. We'll let you know and thanks.


comment #5:

> > I consider myself to be a free software enthusiast and I don't see why any of
> > the requirements you have should be disregarded. If that is your concern, you
> > can count on the new team to keep jcal a free software as it always have
> > been.
>
> Very well.  Can you check the current state of jcal against Savannah
> hosting requirements?  (By the way, please note that they are
> stronger than just being free software.)
>
> > So still I'd like to volunteer and take charge of jcal repo on nongnu, keeping
> > in mind your requirements. The only change that I don't like yet may be
> > necessary is that we may make this a mirror of Github (or Codeberg), as they
> > offer better issue tracking and a nicer UI for contributors. I don't believe
> > any change will happen to the free spirit of the program otherwise.
>
> This would conflict with our policies.  We expect to be used primarily and
> not as a back-up.  We exist to help people develop software and technical
> documentation.  Other hosting services offer storage space.
>

Hossein <hossein>
Fri 25 Apr 2025 07:30:38 PM UTC, comment #5: 


> I consider myself to be a free software enthusiast and I don't see why any of
> the requirements you have should be disregarded. If that is your concern, you
> can count on the new team to keep jcal a free software as it always have
> been.


Very well.  Can you check the current state of jcal against Savannah
hosting requirements?  (By the way, please note that they are
stronger than just being free software.)

> So still I'd like to volunteer and take charge of jcal repo on nongnu, keeping
> in mind your requirements. The only change that I don't like yet may be
> necessary is that we may make this a mirror of Github (or Codeberg), as they
> offer better issue tracking and a nicer UI for contributors. I don't believe
> any change will happen to the free spirit of the program otherwise.


This would conflict with our policies.  We expect to be used primarily and
not as a back-up.  We exist to help people develop software and technical
documentation.  Other hosting services offer storage space.

Ineiev <ineiev>
Site Administrator
Fri 25 Apr 2025 05:48:09 AM UTC, comment #4: 


> To tell the truth, our concerns dwell in a somewhat different plain.  Savannah has a few hosting requirements to be followed by the admins of the hosted packages, and they are surprisingly hard to follow for the newcomers.


I see.

I consider myself to be a free software enthusiast and I don't see why any of the requirements you have should be disregarded. If that is your concern, you can count on the new team to keep jcal a free software as it always have been.


> On the other hand, it seems possible to me that after all these years of discontinued maintenance the Savannah jcal group isn't actually the 'upstream' for the distros any more, that is,


Well at least the homepage of the project has not been changed, even on NixOS repos for example. But even then it'll be quite a task for us to convince all the distros to migrate. It was only after the bug affected the usability of the program that volunteers are trying to push the new code onto the distros.

So still I'd like to volunteer and take charge of jcal repo on nongnu, keeping in mind your requirements. The only change that I don't like yet may be necessary is that we may make this a mirror of Github (or Codeberg), as they offer better issue tracking and a nicer UI for contributors. I don't believe any change will happen to the free spirit of the program otherwise.

Hossein <hossein>
Mon 21 Apr 2025 04:45:41 PM UTC, comment #3: 

On Sun, Apr 20, 2025 at 02:55:13AM -0400, Hossein wrote:

>
> Given the xz attack I totally understand your concern. I signed up using my
> academic email, tied to my real identity. I can also provide further
> guarantees if needed.


To tell the truth, our concerns dwell in a somewhat different plain.  Savannah has a few hosting requirements to be followed by the admins of the hosted packages, and they are surprisingly hard to follow for the newcomers.  Still our users expect that these packages live up to these standards, so we need to make sure that the admins who take over orphan groups are able to comply with them.

> Note that due to a bug (https://github.com/persiancal/jcal/pull/15) in the old
> code, it is one day behind the real date. If we could make distroes benefit
> from the new code, it'd be great.


On the other hand, it seems possible to me that after all these years of discontinued maintenance the Savannah jcal group isn't actually the 'upstream' for the distros any more, that is,

  • updates in it will not be automatically accepted by the distros, and
  • the distros may accept bug fixes from other sources.


Ineiev <ineiev>
Site Administrator
Sun 20 Apr 2025 06:55:07 AM UTC, comment #2: 

comment #1:

> Thank you for your work on this package.  Your request isn't trivial; please let people behind Savannah discuss it internally to make the right decision.


Given the xz attack I totally understand your concern. I signed up using my academic email, tied to my real identity. I can also provide further guarantees if needed.

Note that due to a bug (https://github.com/persiancal/jcal/pull/15) in the old code, it is one day behind the real date. If we could make distroes benefit from the new code, it'd be great.

Thanks for considering this.

Hossein <hossein>
Wed 16 Apr 2025 03:26:49 PM UTC, comment #1: 

Thank you for your work on this package.  Your request isn't trivial; please let people behind Savannah discuss it internally to make the right decision.

Ineiev <ineiev>
Site Administrator
Sun 13 Apr 2025 01:31:36 PM UTC, original submission:  

Hi!

I am an Iranian student. Currently nongnu.org hosts an important piece of software for Iranian people called 'jcal'. Here's the link: https://www.nongnu.org/jcal/

However due to an unfortunate accident the owner of this repo, a prominent figure in Iranian free software, has died:
Source 1: https://jadi.net/2017/10/ashkan-ghasemi/
Source 2: https://meidaan.com/ashkan
Source 3: https://mehdix.ir/rip-ashkan.html

You can use Google Translate or an AI of your choosing to translate the sources above (which are actually quite old now), or just search فوت اشکان قاسمی (Death of Ashkan Ghasemi) by yourself.

I would be very grateful if you let me (based in Iran), or the person behind https://github.com/persiancal (based in Berlin) take ownership of the repo. Currently NixOS is using the new version of the tool, however for effective and more expedient adoption it'd be awesome if you could handle the ownership change.

Many thanks,
Hossein.

Anonymous

 

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    Follow 4 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2025-05-13 ineiev StatusIn Progress Wont Do
        Open/ClosedOpen Closed
    2025-04-16 ineiev StatusNone In Progress
        Assigned toNone ineiev

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