Dne neděle 16. července 2017 22:43:48 CEST, Richard Brown napsal(a):
Top-posting because I want to address a whole range of points in one mail.
On the potential shutdown of this whole list. I realise that possibility is a heavy one. I do not make it lightly, I consider it a last resort, and I do so well aware of the potential negative consequences of making it. But I think it is in the best interest of this mailinglist that I make it. At the very least it should be a clear reminder that the tone & success of this channel is the collective responsibility of everyone here. There are 1243 subscribers to this list, but a handful are dramatically impeding this lists function as a User support platform. This is something 1200+ people can help manage, some already can be said to be doing so given their responses to this thread, and I thank those people for it.
On the claim of 'tyranny' & 'lack of openness'. I have made these requests openly, to the whole list, as an opportunity for either the individuals involved or the whole list to contribute to a solution to the problem and negate the need for further action. This is an open statement of what is acceptable on this list, justified by the fact that this is the opensuse@opensuse.org _support_ mailinglist and the topic in question is not a _support_ topic. Even if you do not agree with this, no action of any kind will be taken without the explicit approval of the openSUSE Board as the body that is elected by the community to make such decisions. No power will be abused, the people appointed & elected to leadership roles within this community will make the decisions they feel are in the best interest of this community. It is their job to do so, and I think it's open, fair, and transparent to do so with adequate warning. In this case, warning before the Board even discusses the possibility of taking action.
On the topic of a new mailinglist. I am not opposed to the idea, but every openSUSE mailinglist should only exist to facilitate communication and collaboration on something which is actively being worked on in the Project. Right now, no one is working on a systemd alternative for openSUSE. So frankly, the idea of a separate list is pointless. If someone steps up to do work, they already have -factory to discuss technical details, and when those discussions get too much for -factory, spinning out a separate list would be a natural option. But contribution _must_come_first_.
On the topic of 'encouragement vs punishment' in volunteer organisations. I agree that volunteer organisations run best when people are encouraged to contribute. I wholeheartedly agree. And I contest that, especially with some of the individuals engaging in these problematic discussions, the encouragement to contribute has been endless and yet wholly ineffective. openSUSE is an open project. Right now, the several hundred contributors to openSUSE all support only systemd. The distributions we ship all only support systemd. It doesn't have to be this way. If a tiny fraction of the effort that was spent on arguing about the evils of systemd was spent building an alternative, such an alternative could easily co-exist inside openSUSE. This could be as subtle as convincing all of those hundreds of contributors to support more than one init system (good luck - people have tried and failed, you're asking for a lot of work), or as extreme as a Devuaan style 'fork' of openSUSE, but it wouldn't necessarily have to be a fork because I would quite happily encourage it to be _part_of_the_openSUSE_project_.
But the fact is, the people involved in hating on systemd and discuessing it endlessly have done nothing to correct that. The narrative seems to be to expect the hundreds of contributors to the openSUSE Project to do more work or different work. Work which all of those contributors have clearly shown they will not do. This is a problem that has now lasted as a recurring issue for this list for over 6 years. Just let that settle in - we've been suffering off-topic, irrelevant, systemd discussions for almost half of the time openSUSE has existed.
It has to stop, and sure it is not sweet, nice, or encouraging, but there are times when hard decisions must be made, the threat to the community must be laid out, and an opportunity to correct the situation must be given.
That is what I set out to do with my original post to this topic and I hope this post clarifies a few of the finer points so things can move forward in a positive direction.
I totally agree. And I'd like to remind existence of offtopic ML... -- Vojtěch Zeisek https://trapa.cz/