[Savannah-hackers-public] Prospective Savannah Hacker Evaluation: Task 13585 (Stive)

[Bruno Félix Rezende Ribeiro]

Hello Savannah hackers!

I really would like to become a competent Savannah hacker so I kindly
ask you to train myself in this craft.  Below is my proposed
evaluation response for the software package submission at:
https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?13585


======================= EVALUATION BEGINNING =========================

Hi David!

I'm evaluating Stive, the project you submitted for approval in
Savannah.  While doing so I have noticed a few issues that you should
be aware about.

You didn't provide the program's dependency list.  After a closer look
I've realized that, GNU Bash, Lynx and VLC are dependencies.  Does
Stive have any other software dependency?  In negative case, I'll
create a project for Stive in Savannah, otherwise make sure all of its
remaining dependencies are free software and let me know.

We strongly encourage that you make the following changes to your
project.

  * Put the copyright and license notices --- in the form of a source
    code comments --- in the Stive's script very top, as explained at
    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html.  Use the extended
    license notice provided there, not the reduced version you used in
    the '--copyright' option.

  * Distribute the program in form of a tarball with a single
    top-level directory: 'stive-<version>', inside which its source
    code should be located.  This change is useful in long run --- for
    instance when you release a new version you can place the user
    visible and noteworthy changes inside the file
    'stive-<next-version>/NEWS'.

  * Include a copy of the GPLv3+ license as 'stive-<version>/COPYING'
    file.  You can find it here:
    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt.

  * In the '--copyright' option text point users to
    http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html instead of the distribution
    dependent '/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL'.

We suggest that you consider the technical advice and issues below:

  * Make Stive fail graciously when lynx is not found.  Currently
    Stive doesn't check for lynx existence and executes commands that
    depend upon it --- even when it isn't available --- causing a
    domino error effect until the interpreter reaches the script's
    end.  Consider using 'set -e'.

  * Implement the GNU standards' command-line interface as in
    http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Command_002dLine-Interfaces.html
    Currently Stive doesn't recognize the '--help' option, that many
    users expect.

  * Merge the text of '--copyright' option with the one of '--version'
    and remove the former option, since by convention copyright
    notices are shown by the latter.

  * Make program's output wrap around 80 columns to ease reading.
    Currently the '--copyright' option output extends to the full
    width of the terminal screen.

  * The package's homepage url: http://sovix.org/software/stive is
    broken.

  * Are you sure you have a meaningful use for a version string of
    four places, like the current '0.0.0.2'?  Since you are developing
    a command-line application, semantic versioning might be useful:
    http://semver.org/

Please, keep in mind that none of these are strict requirements for the
acceptance of your software package in Savannah.

=========================== EVALUATION END ============================


My user name in Savannah is "oitofelix".  My background as a free
software hacker can be found at

http://oitofelix.freeshell.org/curriculum.html


Thank you!


-- 
 ,= ,-_-. =.  Bruno Félix Rezende Ribeiro (oitofelix) [0x28D618AF]
((_/)o o(\_)) http://oitofelix.freeshell.org/
 `-'(. .)`-'  irc://chat.freenode.org/oitofelix
     \_/      xmpp:address@hidden

GNU maintainer: ccd2cue
DMOZ free software editor (Portuguese)
UFU FAMAT PET member

[GNU DISCLAIMER] I'm a GNU hacker, but my views don't necessarily
match those of the GNU project.  Hereby I express my own opinion,
style and perception, in good faith, aiming the betterment of GNU.

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