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To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
From: Kai-Martin Knaak <kmk AT familieknaak DOT de>
Subject: Re: [geda-user] Stop playing stupid political games with gEDA
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2015 19:55:53 +0200
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Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com

DJ Delorie wrote:

> 
>> I disagree with the developer mailing list being separate. In my
>> perception, this separation creates second class citizens.
> 
> We used to have just one list.  The non-devs wanted the dev talk
> moved.
> 
> We switched to an open dev list.  It was abused by non-devs.
> 
> We switched to a closed dev list.  The non-devs complained.

IIRC, there was a period of time where the dev list was writable for 
devs only but could be read by everyone. Consequently some topics 
talked about on the dev-list were also raised and discussed on the 
user list.

Then, read access to the dev-list got restricted to official 
developers. In addition, posts to the user list had to be manually 
approved by a list administrator. By contrast, mails sent to the user 
list by developers did not need to be approved.

From a user perspective, all of this happened out of the blue. There 
was no warning in advance. There was no discussion on any list, let 
alone a poll.

A few months later the old user list got shut down completely. A new 
mailing list was set up on a different server. The list of members was 
not transferred. So the new list started empty. Again, no discussion, 
no warning.



> After a while, we had no devs.
> 
> Now we have one list (geda-user) for general discussion, and we
> happen to have a few other mailing lists that generally have no
> discussion on them yet seem to be a hot spot for everyone who isn't
> on them.

Make the archives public and the paranoia will vanish for the most 
part.


> Just because the project is open source does not mean that everyone
> has a right to be on every mailing list.

IMHO, this is less about permission to be on a list but more about 
whether or not the content of communication is accessible to the 
ordinary user.
Some of the most successful open source projects make a point to 
communicate transparent as possible. An example which comes to mind is 
the Debian project. Their social contract asks to use use public 
methods of communication for Debian-related messages. Sensitive topics 
are an exception, of course.

 
> As for "second class citizens" it's unfortunate that you look at it
> that way, it's a negative view, that someone who has acheived a goal
> somehow diminishes all others.

It is the nature of a privilege that it diminishes those who don't 
have it. There are differences, though. Whether or not the non-
privileged feel second-class depends very much on the way the 
privileged act.
IMHO, the way the transition of the mailing lists was handled, is an 
example of how to suggest to non-devs that they are considered second-
class. The very same changes would have created much less of an upset 
if they had been done more transparently. Probably some of the 
measures may not have seemed necessary in the first place because of a 
reduced upset. In summery, get users involved and the don't feel 
second-class.

---<)kaimartin(>---