Re: [Xen-API] Proposal to rename xen-api mailing list

[Anil Madhavapeddy <anil@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 17 Jun 2013, at 10:18, Lars Kurth <lars.kurth@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Anil,
> 
>> It's quite a lot of trouble renaming mailing lists (in terms of address book 
>> entries, archives, and so on).
> The impact on users is fairly limited: the main impact is on the sysadmin 
> side.  Basically we need to rebuild archives and set up redirects for archive 
> pages and emails. This means that as a user you can keep on using the old 
> list name (but of course it will be cleaner to use a new one). The main 
> impact for user is on mail filters. 

From experience, the mail filter problem is the worst one.  It's *really* 
annoying when a mailing list I read occasionally changes its name, and it all 
comes flooding through into my Inbox since I didn't see the change notice in 
time (for instance, I only sample xen-devel once a month or less).

> 
>> I would prefer a xapi-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx list for now, where both 
>> developer discussion and user 
>> enquiries are welcome (i.e. this list).
> That would be a possibility, however the reality is that today most traffic 
> on xen-api is user traffic, with the occasional developer question. Choosing 
> xapi-general, was a reflection of this. My personal view is to have two 
> lists, but Mike as project lead does not agree as he is worried that the 
> developer list would be too quiet and thus would discourage new developers. 
> This is a valid point.

I think that the problem of a "too-quiet" developer list should be tackled 
straight away.  Combining the mailing lists only solves the symptom.  There's 
clearly a lot of discussion about xapi that happens off-list or internally to 
Citrix, and that's not appropriate for an open-source project that wants to 
attract fresh developers.

A lot of developer mail traffic is usually generated by patchbombs that elicit 
peer review.  This doesn't really apply to Xapi since most of the discussion 
goes on in Github now.  One solution is to gateway Github comments into a mail 
digest to have an archive of it on the developer list.  That's a convenient way 
to get the discussion into our mail clients for easier search, etc.

Another way to generate discussion is to have a volunteer write up a monthly 
"xapi review" that gets posted on the blog and mailing list.  See, for example, 
the legendary Caml Weekly News that has been running for over a decade:
http://alan.petitepomme.net/cwn/

-anil
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