Am Tue, 28. February 2006 21:37 schrieb houghi:
Is there any interest and/or willingness to let people have an @openSUSE.org email adress?
Just a forwarder, not a mailbox. This could be given to people using their Bugtrack login.
Advantages: People wil get an emailadress and then also have the login for bugzilla. This would make it easier for people to add bugs. People will get a feeling of belonging really to openSUSE (coolness factor) Other people will see the domain name, wich means free advertisement.
It might be worth discussing to bundle this with openSUSE boxes sold by SUSE. So it would be an addon to your argument of free advertisement. Plus it might be seen as an invitation to join openSUSE community. And if there will be such a forwarding service it might also be interesting to discuss having local openSUSE Groups eg. sorting users by region / place / city. (which might be virtual groups in a first place but wich may become physical ones. Virtual groups in the meaning of bringing people closer together in their region and give a helping hand forming a loal(ised? pardon my english) placed group.) Another advantage in my eyes is the chance to motivate users to have a more active part in participating openSUSE community, as a strategy / campaign to mobilize brothers in arms. This can be done by offering additional services (workplaces) like a blog, a podcast channel, news bulletin(s) or by reporting about such activities.
Disadvatages: Extra server to maintain. Making rules of when to remove the account (X bounces, spam abuse) Extra trafic. Setting up and configuration
Asuming the numbers of users of other sites who offer such a service I would forecast / asume: If it will be free there might be between 3000 and 5000 users If it is associated to a donation it might be 1000 to 3000 users So I wouldn't asume that this will bring so much users that it really will become a problem of additional reccources. On the other hand if it will attract tenthousands of users it wouldn't be bad, wouldn't it? :-))
What do you think about this idea and would Novell be willing to think about this, as this would be completely sponsored by Novell.
It might be interesting to have a look on other institutions / organisations / groups who offer such service(s) and how it's organised: - Fellowship of FSFE (http://fsfe.org/) Forward address: nickname@fsfe,org Adons: Fellows get an gpg Crypto Card for signing mails etc. personalized webspace (http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/nickname/), blog, etc. Fee / Donation: 120,-€ (60,-€ relief / reduced) per year, donation to FSF Europe - Redhat? - Ubuntu? - Mandrivia? - ATTAC? - Greenpeace? - WWF? - Others? I don't know details about other communities which offer such a service, may be some of you know other examples? regards, Thomas