Rajko M. napsal(a):

There are also specific development lists:

opensuse-programming@opensuse.org

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-programming http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-programming-de

which is not at all related to packaging

Then there is related bunch: http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-testing http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-translation http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-doc http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-ux http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-artwork http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-wiki http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security

which are, again, unrelated to packaging

We should probably think of reducing number of the lists to bring people together to produce real software products that have not only the code part, but friendly user interface (workflow, artwork, documentation, multilingual support) and good QA trough testing.

That is a noble idea. however, i don't think it can work that way. For one, we already did bring the people together. Look at opensuse@, opensuse-factory@, opensuse-packaging@. In fact, we brought *too many people* together. If a thousand programmers, a thousand packagers, a thousand artists, a thousand tech writers and a thousand testers all gather on one mailing list, they will never ever get any work done. We need to separate people into smaller groups that are able to efficiently communicate and cooperate. Groups that can concentrate on specific tasks - lovely as it may sound, "building the best distro" isn't a specific task. We need to have a group of people that produce great code (developers); a group of people that can wrap it so that it coexists with the rest of the distro (packagers); a group of people that design how it all looks (artists); a group of people who make sure that everything works (testers). And we have opensuse-packaging, opensuse-testing, opensuse-artwork ... see the pattern? Bad news is that artists (testers, docwriters, translators etc) are hard to find. That's why half the lists are dead. The other half is inhabited by programmers. But programmers can't do art and they're notoriously bad at writing docs ;e) For two, not everyone does everything. For example, roughly 70%(*) of openSUSErs use KDE. I don't give half a rat's tail about KDE. That means that from my point of view, 70% of opensuse mailing list posts is pure noise. Noise that i have to sift through by hand. (*) Based on a wild guess. Similarly, i'm pretty sure that three out of ten opensuse-factory posters consider python a spawn of satan - and by posting about python to opensuse-factory, i'm just increasing the amount of noise for them. That's why i'm proposing yet another separate mailing list. (but of course, seeing as nobody is interested, no list for us.) regards m. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 09:05:42PM +0200, Wolfgang Rosenauer wrote:

Jan Matejek schrieb:

...

We need to separate people into smaller groups that are able to efficiently communicate and cooperate. Groups that can concentrate on specific tasks - lovely as it may sound, "building the best distro" isn't a specific task.

Actually I pretty much agree. I have a hard time to choose the right mailinglist for some stuff sometimes.

And just recently I've thought about how to get people working on mozilla stuff together. I think there aren't many (yet) but I still have hope we can find at least some. Back when I was at Novell we had a mozilla-team mailinglist for 3 or 4 people and I think that's still very useful.

I would like to have such a mozilla team list again which consist of community and Novell people working with or interested in Mozilla's codebase. Does it cause some overhead? Yes, but what's the cost? Will it help bringing people together in a smaller group to work together? I really think so.

A mailing list may be one way. Another way may be a mail alias <projectname>-maintainers@opensuse.org or anything, which can be used to address the other project maintainers. Not a new invention, I believe that Debian and folks have that since ever. I also believe that automatic aliases would solve the sort of overhead that comes from administering mailing lists on a case-by-case base. The idea seems to be ventilated by some people these days, but I fear that it won't be implemented. Let's see... Heck, we have apache@suse.de and bnc-team-apache@forge.provo.novell.com and it's highly useful (even though I start to fell real alone there...), and a similar thing that automatically includes the maintainers from the Apache project will be even more useful. But so far, the administrative overhead of getting such an email alias (or automatic mailing list) implemented is very high. Peter -- "WARNING: This bug is visible to non-employees. Please be respectful!" SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Research & Development

On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 08:46:36PM +0200, Jan Matejek wrote:

That's why i'm proposing yet another separate mailing list.

I see the need. I also see the administrative overhead but I believe that should be solved by automatic team lists for the project's maintainers. (See my other posting in the thread.) Thus, I'm certainly for a devel:languages:python mailing list, because it simplifies things for the people taking part in the project. However, creating such a list manually, and even having discussions about the need, doesn't solve anything really and causes overhead that we should really get rid of. Not to forget, a conventional mailing list would require people to subscribe, or unsubscribe, in addition to them becoming maintainers of a project or packages - one step too much. It would be so nice to be able to reach the relevant people under a simple address. As an extreme example, try to reach the System:Base maintainers, and you end up composing mails with screen-fuls of To: header! (Having said that, many issues around Python-related packages can (and often should) still be discussed on the general packaging list.) Peter -- "WARNING: This bug is visible to non-employees. Please be respectful!" SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Research & Development

On 2009-06-24 23:56:34 +0200, Karsten König wrote:

How about a mailing list for every devel group? kde, kernel, xorg etc they all map pretty good onto their respective devel groups already

we dont need another 30-40 mailinglists. darix -- openSUSE - SUSE Linux is my linux openSUSE is good for you www.opensuse.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 2009-06-24 19:19:41 -0300, Luiz Fernando Ranghetti wrote:

2009/6/24 Marcus Rueckert :

...

On 2009-06-24 23:56:34 +0200, Karsten König wrote:

...

How about a mailing list for every devel group? kde, kernel, xorg etc they all map pretty good onto their respective devel groups already

we dont need another 30-40 mailinglists.

   darix

Now that openSUSE Factory is open and divided into devel projects maybe yes.

opensuse-factory is imho the right place to discuss changes in project. as most of the time the changes will affect more than just your development project. darix -- openSUSE - SUSE Linux is my linux openSUSE is good for you www.opensuse.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On čt 25. června 2009, Susanne Oberhauser wrote:

Marcus Rueckert writes:

...

On 2009-06-24 19:19:41 -0300, Luiz Fernando Ranghetti wrote:

...

2009/6/24 Marcus Rueckert :

...

On 2009-06-24 23:56:34 +0200, Karsten König wrote:

...

How about a mailing list for every devel group? kde, kernel, xorg etc they all map pretty good onto their respective devel groups already

we dont need another 30-40 mailinglists.

   darix

Now that openSUSE Factory is open and divided into devel projects maybe yes.

opensuse-factory is imho the right place to discuss changes in project. as most of the time the changes will affect more than just your development project.

+1, absolutely.

Peter,

I also like the mail alias idea.

How about this:

there is automatic aliases package-$package@..., project-$project@..., maybe @hermes.opensuse.org.

The mail should get a additional subject tag [pkg:$package] ... or [prj:$project], and is Cc: ed to o-factory@o.o with this tag.

I like this propsal. We need a way to reach the project maintainers reliably. On generic mailinglist the mails can be overlooked in the noise. OTOH these mails must have a public archive. This proposal fixes both issues. My only concern is how long it would take to implement it. The $TOPIC group are just forming and the communication is done mostly in private mails. This is not good for openness and IMO we need a better solution fast. Vladimir -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Susanne Oberhauser writes:

I'm filing a fate request for this.

#306571: Make project and package maintainers easily accessible S. -- Susanne Oberhauser +49-911-74053-574 SUSE -- a Novell Business OPS Engineering Maxfeldstraße 5 Processes and Infrastructure Nürnberg SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org