Re: We can halve volume by not allowing nondevelopers to post
On Mon, 22 Mar 1999, Ian Jackson wrote:
> The situation we have now is that the list is largely useless for its
> original main purpose: internal nonconfidential discussions amongst
> developers.
[most of Ian's sensible comments snipped]
>
> Certainly we should create another list for other developer-user
> interactions, but we cannot expect most developers to read the number
> of postings we see in -devel at the moment, so we wouldn't necessarily
> expect developers to subscribe to that new list.
>
> I don't think either that closing -devel to nondeveloper postings will
> significantly harm Debian's open culture.
My initial instinct was to disagree with Ian's proposal - and agree with
the various protests in this thread.
However, I am becoming convinced by his latest arguments.
I could see some benefit from this situation:
debian-devel:
Discussion of debian development. Open for reading, posting restricted to
debian developers. Debian non-developers are encourage to express their
points of view in private mail to someone on the thread - and the
developers are expected to summarise these opinions, when they are
valuable. Debian developers are expected to subscribe to this list.
debian-devel-discuss:
The preferred forum for non-developers to make suggestions to debian
developers about all aspects of debian development. If a discussion
results in a consensus, or highlights an important issue, one of the
developers here will bring it to the attention of the debian-devel list.
debian-{hamm,slink,potato}
List for discussing particular caveats and buglets in particular versions
of the debian distribution.
A statement like this might be posted on the lists web-page:
The Debian developers sincerely regret the necessity of closing the
debian-devel list to posting. However, it was deemed that the importance
of having a public forum to which all developers could subscribe made this
move necessary. It is hoped that the devel-discuss list, and private
mail, as well as the various special purpose debian lists, will provide
enough channels of communication to keep debian an open project.
Jules
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| Jelibean aka | jules@jellybean.co.uk | 6 Evelyn Rd |
| Jules aka | | Richmond, Surrey |
| Julian Bean | jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk | TW9 2TF *UK* |
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| War doesn't demonstrate who's right... just who's left. |
| When privacy is outlawed... only the outlaws have privacy. |
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