Re: status of debian-consultants mailing list
> On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 08:35:48AM +0800, Stephen Hardman wrote:
> > I think this list is vital to the existance of Debian.
>
> *boggle*
>
> > It demonstrates that there is a component of Debian professionals willing
> > to discuss consulting on a professional level, even if we have no comment
> > at present.
>
> No, not really. It demonstrates that someone in the ancient past thought
> that a mailing list described as "Communication among and about Debian
> consultants." would be useful enough to exist, and created it. Nothing more,
> nothing less.
>
> In fact, I speculate it's less than that, because due to the way the list
> was configured I believe it was once used by the consultants web page
> maintainers to auto-subscribe people who sent them information about their
> consulting business. This was later abolished.
>
Whatever it was created as, the current image is more important, which is
also part of being a Debian consultant.
> > If it disappears, the image of Debian becomes less commercially viable.
>
> Strawman. Besides, there's still a debian-commercial list if you're so
> worried about image.
>
I don't see the lists as being entirely compatible.
> > To continue pushing for its removal is sort of like trying to
> > persuade everyone that professional consulting for Debian is being
> > discontinued.
>
> That's so non sequitur it's not even funny...
>
The point is, that I believe the image to Debian is important. It's more
likely to make more negative news by disappearing than by remaining.
I'm working with Debian all the time, and am constantly being faced by
people trying to discount open source as bein non-viable, the removal
of a support list for Consultants is just another aspect of that, in my
opinion.
> > It was pretty clear to me that the people were quite willing and
> > able to participate further after the last time someone tried to ask
> > for its removal. The feedback appeared to be overwhelmingly positive
> > to keep the list running.
>
> No, I didn't get the impression it was overwhelmingly positive. I counted
> less than half a dozen for removal, and less than half a dozen against it.
> I admit that a couple of mails weren't sent to the list, only to me
> personally. But even discarding them, none of the numbers support what's
> supposed to be a several year old discussion forum, not by a long shot.
> The administrivia discussion is the bulk of traffic and it only managed to
> spawn one single thread that seemed remotely relevant to the actual topic.
>
I guess I wasn't paying attention to it being just one thread, but it
generated enough bandwidth that I must have thought it was more.
If you can recommend something like debian-devel, for consultant related
topics, without the fluff and flames that debian-devel gets, that would be
ideal.
> > Why don't the people who don't believe it needs to exist anymore simply
> > unsubscribe?
>
> I'm afraid you've got a bigger issue than that -- I'm proposing this in my
> capacity as one of listmaster@lists.debian.org >:)
>
If you choose to use your perceived autocratic right to remove the list,
then please also remove my address so that it will not be re-used at a
future date on any new lists, where unlike this one, I may not chose
to subscribe.
Cheers,
Steve
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