Re: [gentoo-dev] Too many mailing lists

[Simon Stelling <blubb@gentoo.org>]

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Hi Ivan,

Ivan Yosifov wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
> 
> First of all - this is just an idea, if my impressions are wrong -
> pardon. 
> It is my impression that gentoo has way too many mailing lists wich by
> themselves are not very active. For example I am a
> gentoo-desktop-research subscriber for mounths and have not recived a
> single message. 

Yes, we have a lot of mailing lists. No, most of them aren't that 
active, but i don't care if there is much traffic. I fact, i thank God 
there is not so much traffic. I receive about 120 Mails (spam not 
counted) per day (all gentoo-related), and about 110 are relevant to me. 
I really don't like the idea of receiving 250 Mails of which 110 are 
relevant to me.

> I further believe that developer issues are always just developer
> issues. A java-plugin can expose a browser bug. A ppc specific problem
> my be a bug in the common kernel source. There is little reason for
> having a dozen separate lists when the issues discussed on these lists
> are related. As of now for a developer to have a full grasp of what
> ideas are flying about and what problems bother the users most he has to
> subscribe to ALL lists which is a lot of subscibe-me mails.

If you, as a PPC user have a security problem with a java plugin, it's 
quite easy: File a bug, assign it to the herd you think it is the most 
important to that bug and CC the others. Another example: We often get 
bugs like "app-foo/bar-1.0 does not work on amd64" that are assigned to 
amd64@gentoo.org. After having a look at the error log i see that it is 
most likely a arch-independend bug and reassign it to the right herd/guy 
and CC amd64@.

> Imagine a PPC user with security problem in the java plugin. Where can
> he discus his problem ? On gentoo-desktop, gentoo-security, gentoo-dev,
> gentoo-ppc-dev, gentoo-ppc-user, gentoo-java or somewhere else? Having
> so many lists with so deeply connected topics is confusing and a waste
> of valuable communication resources.

I agree, there are cases that are deeply connected, but i don't think a 
gentoo-problems list would make it better, because you just can't read 
every mail you get. You read what seems important to you, and that's it. 
I don't want to filter 90% of the mails i get out and read the oder 10%, 
finding out that only 5% are really what i wanted to read ;)

> I propose the following. There should be a gentoo-announce list for
> GLSA,release announces and whatever everyone must be aware of. There
> should be a gentoo-dev for all development related issues (users having
> problems go here). And there should be a gentoo-user for users that need
> guidance (like how do I do this,where is that...).

*This* gentoo-dev isn't there for helping users with their problems. The 
only purpose is to improve Gentoo. The respective mailing lists 
(gentoo-ppc-user, gentoo-java and so on) are.

> Naturally the traffic on the dev and user list can get high. But no one
> forces the PPC dev to read the X.org threads so this should not be a
> problem.

Sure. But it forces the PPC dev to filter them out, and that takes more 
time the more emails you get about stuff you aren't interested in. I 
really don't care about java, and i don't care about hardened in general 
(well, i care about them if it's a amd64-specific problem :))

In general, I agree with you, but I don't think that your solution will 
bring us the expected improvements.

Greetings,

blubb

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