pkg-sysvinit-devel mailing list, proposed closure/replacement

[Ian Jackson]

(Replying to the mailing list point; dropping the bug in favour of
the two lists and changing the Subject line.)

Andreas Henriksson writes ("Re: initscripts: Restore locked root account access by using sulogin --force"):
> I'd also like to take the opportunity to fwiw object to the changing of
> mailing list used in the Maintainer field. I happen to know from
> experience that the alioth sysvinit-maintainers has people who have deep
> sysvinit knowledge subscribed. By moving away from that list you'll
> likely lose those people from potentially reading and occationally
> comment on what's going on. Simply retracting into some corner of the
> internet won't be doing the sysvinit package *in* *debian* a service.
> You have everything to win by keeping clueful people in the loop.
> Please feel free to use your other mailing list for discussion with your
> peers, but keep the alioth list for official debian business.

Thanks for your opinion.

I agree that the input from longstanding subscribers to
pkg-sysvinit-devel is valuable.  The technical points you make in your
message are just a few examples of that.  Thank you.

I can see why you might think moving off a d.o is a "retreat".  But I
don't see it that way.  It seems to me that the creation of the new
list has been the spur for a radical transformation of the sysvinit
package team in Debian, with new contributors and new energy.  This is
great.

I do hope that this new energy can be combined with existing
expertise.  But I don't think retaining two lists is a viable
approach.  It just generates confusion - indeed we have had plenty of
that already!  And anyway lists.alioth.d.o is not a permanent service
so we need a new home of some kind anyway.

You might also want to read this message of mine where I answered a
similar point from Dmitry:
  https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/debian-init-diversity/2018-October/000056.html
Some of the things I say there may be unwelcome to Debian ears.
I know it makes me sad, as a Debian person, to write them.

Having said all, that I think we could do more to retain the expertise
on pkg-sysvinit-devel.  As a part of that I will make another, more
definite, announcement to pkg-sysvinit-devel about the new list.

I am also open to being convinced that members of pkg-sysvinit-devel
should be auto-subscribed to the new list, and the old list closed.  I
will discuss that a bit more in my announcement that I will make in a
moment, so if you want to answer that point please do so there.

Please do come and join the new list.  Or if you are not interested in
the other work going on there, you can subscribe to just whatever
subset of sysvinit/insserv/startpar you like, via the PTS, of course.

Regards,
Ian.

-- 
Ian Jackson <ijackson at chiark.greenend.org.uk>   These opinions are my own.

If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
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