GNU Savannah is a project of the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)#501(c)(3), 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

initiated by Loïc Dachary, which serves as a collaborative software development management system for

free Software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

projects. Savannah currently offers CVS,

GNU arch GNU arch software is a distributed revision control system that is part of the GNU Project and licensed under the GNU General Public License. It is used to keep track of the changes made to a source tree and to help programmers combine and otherwis ...

Subversion Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Sub ...

Git Git () is a distributed version control system: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Its goals include speed, data in ...

Mercurial Mercurial is a distributed revision control tool for software developers. It is supported on Microsoft Windows and Unix-like systems, such as FreeBSD, macOS, and Linux. Mercurial's major design goals include high performance and scalability, d ...

Bazaar A bazaar () or souk (; also transliterated as souq) is a marketplace consisting of multiple small Market stall, stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, North Africa and India. However, temporary open markets elsewhere, suc ...

, mailing list, web hosting, file hosting, and bug tracking services. Savannah initially ran on the same SourceForge software that at the time was used to run the

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirrorin ...

portal. Savannah's website is split into two domain names: savannah.gnu.org for software that is officially part of the

GNU Project The GNU Project () is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices by collaborati ...

, and savannah.nongnu.org for all other software. Unlike

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...

, Savannah's focus is for hosting

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

projects and has very strict hosting policies, including a ban against the use of non-free formats (such as

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...

) to ensure that only free software is hosted. When registering a project, project submitters have to state which

free software license A free-software license is a notice that grants the recipient of a piece of software extensive rights to modify and redistribute that software. These actions are usually prohibited by copyright law, but the rights-holder (usually the author) ...

the project uses. Project owners do not have the freedom of deleting their submitted projects on their own wish and the staff has a policy of refusing all deletion requests, unless the project was approved by mistake or has always been empty.

History

Loïc Dachary installed SourceForge on a server located in Boston for the benefit of the

(specifically, to power the GNU Savannah's website). When, as contributor to SourceForge, he found out it was to be turned into proprietary software, he forked it and named it Savannah (since it was the software running the GNU Project's Savannah website and had no other name.). People contributing to GNU Savannah were called savannah-hackers from this day, as it was at first more a quick hack than anything else.

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

took interest in the sourcecode and hired Mathieu Roy, a savannah-hacker, to work in Geneva. It led to the development of

Savane (software) Savane is a free web-based software hosting system. It includes issue tracking (bugs, tasks, support, news and documentation), project member management by roles and individual account maintenance. History The GNU Project's GNU Savannah w ...

starting in 2003. In 2003,

Vincent Caron Vincent Caron is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec in the 2018 provincial election.

, friend to Loïc Dachary, found out the security of the server located was compromised. A new server was bought by the

to provide a clean reinstall of the software. When this server was put in place, after a four-month outage without any public news, only Free Software Foundation employees had access to it. Notably savannah-hackers had no access and found out that Richard M. Stallman decided to move GNU Savannah to

GForge GForge is a commercial service originally based on the Alexandria software behind SourceForge, a web-based project management and collaboration system which was licensed under the GPL. Open source versions of the GForge code were released from 2 ...

because it was "seriously maintained". In response, Vincent Caron, Loïc Dachary and Mathieu Roy put up an alternative instance of the software called

Gna! Gna! was a centralized location where software developers could develop, distribute and maintain free software. The service was shut down in 2017 after 13 years in service for dozens of software projects and millions of downloads served. Since Ma ...

, with a specific constitution inspired by the

Debian Social Contract The Debian Social Contract (DSC) is a document that frames the moral agenda of the Debian project. The values outlined in the Social Contract provide the basic principles for the Debian Free Software Guidelines that serve as the basis of the Open ...

designed to prevent any unexpected take over. GNU Savannah was totally or partly offline for months and, ultimately, did not move to GForge, which itself turned into proprietary software.

References

External links

* * {{Bug tracking systems

Savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...

Project hosting websites Open-source software hosting facilities

History

See also

References

External links