Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 "Critical News Reporting" Round Two

[Grobian]

Stuart Herbert wrote:
> By your own admission, you're on the announce list, and but you didn't
> know about the Apache changes.  Imagine how many other users were in the
> same situation.  Imagine how many other users never signed up to the
> announce list in the first place.

On gentoo-dev, gentoo-user, gentoo-devel, gentoo-server and 
gentoo-web-user on 2005-09-08 01:48 UTC a message titled "Stabilization 
of new-style Apache" was posted.

Quoting John Myers:
> For the record, it was sent to the announce list on 2004-12-24.
> Message-Id: <200412240924.35397.stuart@g.o>
> Subject: [gentoo-announce] Apache packages refresh on 8th January 2005

giving me the impression that the new-style apache changes were not 
announced (though they did cause some trouble), and that this message -- 
which unfortunately is not on Gmane, so I cannot check -- probably deals 
*not* with those new-style apache changes.  If it does, then it might be 
'badly timed'.

In the whole of 2005 I can see one message on gentoo-announce which is 
not a GLSA, which is a release announcement for Gentoo Linux 2005.0.

Considering the description of gentoo-announce "General Gentoo 
announcements list (new releases, security fixes)" perhaps this list 
might not the the right place for such **important** announcements as 
the new-style apache message.

However, suppose I was a normal user, and I would like to receive these 
messages, where should I sign up for?
gentoo-user?
   "General Gentoo user support and discussion mailing list" sounds like
    a lot of spam to me, and if I don't have questions myself, or prefer
    using the (excellent) forums for that, then why should I sign up for
    that?
gentoo-dev perhaps?
   "General Gentoo developer discussion mailing list" sounds like a lot
    of spam too, and certainly not as source for important messages from
    a user perspective.
gentoo-security?
   "For the discussion of security issues and fixes"  Well, as user I
    might only be interested in the announcement of security fixes,
    don't need discussions on them, and since I want those important
    messages about changes in gentoo psckages... nope, this is not it.
gentoo-gwn?
   "Gentoo Weekly Newsletter" well, might come in handy, doesn't say
    anything about what it does exactly and might contain a lot of
    noise considering what I'm looking for.
doc, doc-cvs, translator, ppc-user, ppc-dev, <arch>, kernel, laptop:
   not applicable
gentoo-desktop:
    might be, though not interested in window managers
<etc etc etc>
gentoo-server?
   "Discussions about Gentoo in production environments" ok, I don't need
   discussions, I just want messages on **important** changes.

After going through the list, I got the impression there is simply no 
place where such messages clearly would go.  gentoo-announce sounds as 
the best option to go for, but its description somehow suggests not. 
Though, subscribed to gentoo-announce means you get nothing but GLSA 
announcements and sometimes a new release announcements.

So, what list should the user that wants to receive those **important** 
messages sign up to?
I still think that *this* is the reason why people don't seem to know 
about the important changes, because there is no obvious place where to 
get them.  It's quite likely that a user that wanted to see the 
new-style apache message didn't see it because it simply didn't appear 
on a list the user hoped to see it.  It was in the GWN of 2005-09-12, 
but I can imagine a user didn't expect it to be there, as there is no 
description at al for GWN list, and the **important** information will 
always have to be extracted from the GWN, since each GWN covers multiple 
items in a few categories which not every user might interest.

Send **important** messages separate to a non-discussion mailing list, 
and I'm sure that many people will be happy to read it -- just like 
gentoo-announce.


-- 
Fabian Groffen
Gentoo for Mac OS X Project -- Interim Lead
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