Review of overkill: https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?9812

[Mario Xerxes Castelán Castro]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

October 26th 2009 for savannah-public-hackers@...

"0verkill is a deathmatch-like action game for computers without pixel
graphics and text mode users.". It is under GPL 2+. Some files has
been took from zlib and say "For conditions of distribution and use,
see copyright notice in zlib.h" but zlib.h is not included in
overkill. Most files in the subdirectories lacks the licence notiece.

As a minor detail the directory inside the tarball is named "0verkill"
(With zero) and the project name is "overkill" (With the 'O' letter).

There is several very concerning .dst files who say "# Microsoft
Developer Studio Project File - Name="Server" - Package Owner=<4>
[...]", i do not know if it is legal to inclde that files, but it is
not a good example to use private tools to make a free program.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAkrmbRYACgkQZ4DA0TLic4gl9QCggUh0G+PvVyf6+XnLi022rbSS
qYsAnimNh7Dc37mIIOekN7T/pAmkL1sz
=rZqM
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Sebastian Gerhardt]

Hi Mario,

thanks for your help in reviewing projects.


*******************************
> "0verkill is a deathmatch-like action game for computers without pixel
> graphics and text mode users.". It is under GPL 2+. Some files has
> been took from zlib and say "For conditions of distribution and use,
> see copyright notice in zlib.h" but zlib.h is not included in
> overkill. Most files in the subdirectories lacks the licence notiece.

Right, good catch.
Especially the media files (including the .avi) need licensing and
copyright information. I usually ask the maintainer to put a text file
in every such directory listing all media files with copyright&license
info to address this.

> As a minor detail the directory inside the tarball is named "0verkill"
> (With zero) and the project name is "overkill" (With the 'O' letter).

I think this is for technical reasons as Savannah project names can't
start with a number. So I wouldn't mind.


> There is several very concerning .dst files who say "# Microsoft
> Developer Studio Project File - Name="Server" - Package Owner=<4>
> [...]", i do not know if it is legal to inclde that files, but it is
> not a good example to use private tools to make a free program.

"private tools"? Did you mean "proprietary"?
To decide about this, I would check whether two conditions are met:
a) The project builds and runs on Free Software platform preferably
GNU/Linux, with free tools, without caveats in performance or features
compared to the proprietary. Judging from the included Makefiles, I
think this is the case here.

b) The project files are Free Software itself. This means the user has
the right to modify, distribute, ... them. So either the user can easily
create such files by himself because they are auto-generated, or these
files have license information included. (Like the Makefile does.)

If in doubt about this, we should ask the maintainer for clarification
first.

*******************************

I suggest you post an answer you WOULD give as a Savannah team member on
this mailing list for us to cross check, together with your conclusion
whether this project should be approved or needs work. So we can have a
another look on the answer before it gets posted on the tracker.
(As you have seen, people tend to take everything that gets written on
the tracker as official Savannah team statements.)



Regards,
Sebastian

[Sebastian Gerhardt]

> The "Other Sofrware Required" section says:
>
> some libc, I'd prefer the GNU C Library
> To run it under X (optional):
> libX11, license: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libX11/tree/COPYING
> optionally libXpm, license:
> http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libXpm/tree/COPYING
> Compile time only depandencies:
> gcc
> GNU make
>
> But they never says explicitly than runs in GNU/Linux.

The list of dependencies suggests that it does. But nevertheless
you can ask the author to list all operating systems on which he was
able to build, run and test the project.


> Please excuse me, i can't understand that pharse. ¿Do you mean than i
> must clarify than i are not an official member of the savannah
> team?.
> The man of project Chrony even thinked than my review of his project
> than i sent to him and to this list was the official one (I responsed
> to him than was not the case).
> I can ask the mantainer if his project run and build on a free OS?,

You can, but if you write an email to the maintainer directly or,
preferably, use the web interface of Savannah, I recommend you begin
every message with a disclaimer like:

*******************************************
"Please note that I am not a member of the Savannah administration team.
I only try to help you to resolve all remaining issues in this project
submission that I could find. If all hosting requirements for Savannah
are met, an admin will approve this submission."
*******************************************


But if you are unsure about some requirements, it is always better to
ask us first on the mailing-list. It is confusing for the maintainer if
you point out one problem and another person comes by and says "You are
wrong, this is not a requirement".  

[Nicodemo Alvaro-2]

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:45:50 +0100
Sebastian Gerhardt <sebgerhardt@...> wrote:

> *******************************************
> "Please note that I am not a member of the Savannah administration team.
> I only try to help you to resolve all remaining issues in this project
> submission that I could find. If all hosting requirements for Savannah
> are met, an admin will approve this submission."
> *******************************************
>
>
> But if you are unsure about some requirements, it is always better to
> ask us first on the mailing-list. It is confusing for the maintainer if
> you point out one problem and another person comes by and says "You are
> wrong, this is not a requirement".  

May I make the suggestion that you both use the script provided for
this task? You will find savannah.el attached to this e-mail.

It's the normal script that Savannah Administrators are supposed to
use. You can find directions in the comments of the file. This version
I am sending you is the emacs version.

--
Nicodemo