[Freedombox-discuss] Sukey

[Robinson Tryon]

On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 12:30 PM, Nicolás Reynolds <fauno at kiwwwi.com.ar> wrote:
> I just found out about this: "Sukey - Keeping demonstrators safe, mobile
> & informed" http://sukey.org/
>

* The name comes from a nursery rhyme:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-nAVG2tIvA
* Pronunciation appears to be [su'ki]

> I don't think it was mentioned here before, but it looks interesting for the
> FreedomBox, since they're releasing it under AGPL.
>

I appreciate the fact that they're releasing the code under the AGPL
(v3), however I'm not sure how compatible their development strategy
will be with a project like FreedomBox.

Regarding the question "Why don't you release the code?", their response was:

| "It has always been our plan to make the code open
| source. Security is paramount and we feel it would benefit
| from being released to the public after each protest."

Sounds a bit like security-through-obscurity?

| "Our current plan is to release the code then start working on
| Sukey 2 in a private fork, while allowing community to beef up
| the code from last time. We feel this will maximize both security
| and openness."

Why the split between the two groups? This has the appearance of
development at a corporation with an internal team vs. the community,
which I'm hoping is not their intention.

If they're interested in open development, I'd hope that they would do
more than just toss old versions of the code over the wall for the
community to nibble on.

Maybe there's some useful stuff that the FreedomBox project could
glean from the code dumps, but I'd be reticent about partnering with a
project that approaches software development with such a different
interpretation of "openness" and such different view of the role of
the community.

--R