It seems always better to precise that: this is not the official hosting policy, just an help.

When you submit a project, it is reviewed by the Savannah hackers, to check for compliance with the Savannah hosting policies.

Here is a compliance check-list, then further explanations.

• Make sure your project runs primarily on a completely free OS;
• Use a license compatible with the GNU GPL;
• Write a half-page technical description of your project: its goal, its programming language and its depencies (with URLs);
• Don't forget to give a pointer to the source code;
• Apply valid copyright and license notices using our templates; include a copy of the license you chose
• Convert your GIFs to PNGs or JPEGs;
• Refer to the GNU/Linux operating system instead of the Linux, which is the kernel. Advertise the free software movements, which we support, and not the open source one, which we don't. Do not use "Open" in your project name.

The review we do can be long and tedious for both the submitter and the reviewer. Be sure to follow these steps; if your project doesn't comply with our requirements, we will ask you to make changes to your project or register again. This ensure a level of quality for projects hosted at Savannah.

Here are further details:

• Project dependencies: to make the approval process quicker, give us URLs to your depencies, and if possible direct links to their licenses
• GNU GPL-compatible license: your license should be listed as compatible at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html. You can also use the Affero GPL (since it is very likely to compatible with GPLv3). For documentation, we are currently clarifying exactly what licenses we accept. Of course, we accept our GNU Free Documentation License (and compatibles), even if it is not compatible with the GNU GPL.
  
• Consistent licensing:
  • Write appropriate copyright and license notices, at the beginning of all of your files. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html and http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Notices.html are good starting points to understand these issues and provide standard templates, that you should use to speed up the approval. More answers at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html. For the GFDL, check http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-howto.html
  • Include a verbatim copy of the license as plain text, do not point users to an external source to get the license;
  • Moreover, do not combine code with incompatible licenses (e.g. GNU GPL'd code with CPL'd code). The GPL Compliance Lab, licensing@fsf.org, may provide advice for complex cases. For Perl code, avoid the modules released under the Artistic license only; for PHP, avoid modules released under the PHP license. Or talk their authors into releasing them under licenses compatible with the GNU GPL :)
• No proprietary dependencies: your project
  • must work on a completely free operating system. Find free replacements for your non-free dependencies. Develop and test your Java applications with GNU GCJ and Classpath, and your .Net ones with DotGNU (or other free alternatives). http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html explains why.
  • Runs primarily on a free operating system. Proprietary platforms such as Microsoft Windows should be considered as secondary targets, and cannot provide additional features over the ports to free OSes.
• No storage or back-up-only project: we exist to help people develop software and technical documentation. Other hosting services offer storage space. We expect to be used primarily and not as a back-up, although we do not require all parts of the project to be hosted at Savannah.
• No GIFs: just convert them to PNGs or JPEGs, because the GIF format is encumbered by patents (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html)
• Tell people that there are using the GNU/Linux variant of the GNU operating system, and that Linux is its kernel, not the whole OS. Check http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html and http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html
• We support the free software movement, and not the open source one, because we are careful about ethics, that is, our primary focus is the freedom offered to users of free software. Further information at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html . As a consequence, we do not accept project with the work open in their name; we suggest you replace it with free instead, or use another project name of your choice.

If you followed these advices and prepared your project accordingly, you're likely to gain time during your project registration, and are likely to get approved after the first review.