9 ms·

The Gnome Project is closing all its mailing lists

37 points by samizdis 4y ago

lupire 4y ago
> The new platform offers way more features than Mailman, including gamification which newer generations, in general, appreciate, GNOME is a parody of itself.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  I assume that means things like emojis/upvotes, slashdot style streaks and awards for participating. I'm sure I could look it up. Why be hostile to Gnome when they're far from the first to dump mailman, and far from the first to use Discourse?
- kkfx 4y ago
  GNOME is formally a FLOSS project, but in reality a managerial-drive Open Source project, a way to elict free works for contributors for the sake of a company business... Mailing lists are hard not much because mails layer too many tech but because people do not know them anymore due to the big push toward web crapplications, a push choosed for commercial purposes. As a result instead of being on a decentralized infra we end up in centralized ones, get too much overhead than switch to some giant cloud services. Unfortunately it's not only "generic people" (CL/UL in the Simon's BOFH tails terms) but also technicians who tend "in crowd" to behave as any other "crowd" by Gustave Le Bon...
- manuelabeledo 4y ago
  It might be, but not because of this. Even GitHub is gamified in a way. I don't understand the issue with it. Badges, achievements, progress dashboards, etc. are mostly fine, and have been around for decades in multiple flavours and platforms.
teekert 4y ago
I love Gnome, they piss some people off by making radical choices, but slowly they keep iterating and coming up with something nice over a long term. They have a vision and stick to it for years. I'm happy they don't just feel offended by posts like yours and act like short term pleasers. It's foss, you can fork it, you can use KDE. you can switch to Windows if you want. That's what free as in freedom is. Personally I would have preferred matrix/element but hey Discourse>mailing lists for me.
- rolandog 4y ago
  > Personally I would have preferred matrix/element but hey Discourse>mailing lists for me. Seems like there will be a Matrix bridge; FTA: > GNOME Infrastructure Team Coordinator Andrea Veri [...] > [...] also mentioned reducing fragmentation of the GNOME communities, along with improved integration, such as a bridge to Matrix for live chat. The move is part of a general modernization of the GNOME Project's infrastructure, which has also seen a move from IRC to Matrix and from cgit to GitLab.
- okasaki 4y ago
  Like what? I think it's generally agreed that their main product, the GNOME UI, uh, sucks.
  - henriquez 4y ago
    I like it
    - okasaki 4y ago
      Well, that's okay. But lots of people don't and I've never seen anyone using it. I've seen Unity, XFCE, i3, and KDE, but no GNOME.
      - kaba0 4y ago
        Look harder.
  - hactually 4y ago
    I also like it. plenty of the guys I collaborate with do too. what data are you going from?
    - flyingfences 4y ago
      Does the file picker show thumbnails yet?
robert_foss 4y ago
As a mailing-list bound software professional, this is wonderful news. Maybe one day we will be free of software development on MLs.
- clircle 4y ago
  What's better than a mailing list?
  - robert_foss 4y ago
    I'd say that 95% of developers would find a github/gitlab type interface more productive and easy to pick up.
    - ilyt 4y ago
      The remaining 5% know how to use git
      - robert_foss 4y ago
        That's kinda of elitist. And very likely not true.
        ilyt 4y ago
        neither is 95% number, it was a joke
      - chpatrick 4y ago
        Git has nothing to do with discussion and issue tracking.
        sleepydog 4y ago
        git has a built-in email command.
        ilyt 4y ago
uri4 4y ago
Many OS projects closed their mailing lists. Google groups become unusable, and maintaining your own infrastructure is pain. Plus many OS devs resigned on providing unpaid customer support. So far Github issues seems to be a good place for relevant bug reports. And people who need help (and paid) have direct phone number.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
aliqot 4y ago
gnome3 is the best thing to happen to kde.
chaz6 4y ago
I would be happy if projects would convert their mailing lists to newsgroups. They are the perfect forum for discussions. The main benefits being that I can download all the historical messages easily (difficult with mailing lists), and I can use an interface that I am accustomed to no matter the provider (difficult with web forums where each uses their own theme).
zurb 4y ago
Closing mailing lists is another step away from the free Internet. Mailing lists have searchable, multiple, non-centralized archives and are harder to censor. Discourse is centralized, moderators delete messages, rename and manipulate threads. The inner circle has all the power. Upvotes induce groupthink and cliques.
- justaj 4y ago
  What about something like Matrix.org?
keeperoftruth 4y ago
Any project relying on python will eventually die.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  Any project will eventually die.
  - yasinaydin 4y ago
    Any will eventually die.

37 points by samizdis 4y ago

> The new platform offers way more features than Mailman, including gamification which newer generations, in general, appreciate, GNOME is a parody of itself.

unethical_ban 4y ago
I assume that means things like emojis/upvotes, slashdot style streaks and awards for participating. I'm sure I could look it up. Why be hostile to Gnome when they're far from the first to dump mailman, and far from the first to use Discourse?
kkfx 4y ago
GNOME is formally a FLOSS project, but in reality a managerial-drive Open Source project, a way to elict free works for contributors for the sake of a company business... Mailing lists are hard not much because mails layer too many tech but because people do not know them anymore due to the big push toward web crapplications, a push choosed for commercial purposes. As a result instead of being on a decentralized infra we end up in centralized ones, get too much overhead than switch to some giant cloud services. Unfortunately it's not only "generic people" (CL/UL in the Simon's BOFH tails terms) but also technicians who tend "in crowd" to behave as any other "crowd" by Gustave Le Bon...
manuelabeledo 4y ago
It might be, but not because of this. Even GitHub is gamified in a way. I don't understand the issue with it. Badges, achievements, progress dashboards, etc. are mostly fine, and have been around for decades in multiple flavours and platforms.

teekert 4y ago

I love Gnome, they piss some people off by making radical choices, but slowly they keep iterating and coming up with something nice over a long term. They have a vision and stick to it for years. I'm happy they don't just feel offended by posts like yours and act like short term pleasers. It's foss, you can fork it, you can use KDE. you can switch to Windows if you want. That's what free as in freedom is. Personally I would have preferred matrix/element but hey Discourse>mailing lists for me.

rolandog 4y ago
> Personally I would have preferred matrix/element but hey Discourse>mailing lists for me. Seems like there will be a Matrix bridge; FTA: > GNOME Infrastructure Team Coordinator Andrea Veri [...] > [...] also mentioned reducing fragmentation of the GNOME communities, along with improved integration, such as a bridge to Matrix for live chat. The move is part of a general modernization of the GNOME Project's infrastructure, which has also seen a move from IRC to Matrix and from cgit to GitLab.
okasaki 4y ago
Like what? I think it's generally agreed that their main product, the GNOME UI, uh, sucks.
- henriquez 4y ago
  I like it
  - okasaki 4y ago
    Well, that's okay. But lots of people don't and I've never seen anyone using it. I've seen Unity, XFCE, i3, and KDE, but no GNOME.
    - kaba0 4y ago
      Look harder.
- hactually 4y ago
  I also like it. plenty of the guys I collaborate with do too. what data are you going from?
  - flyingfences 4y ago
    Does the file picker show thumbnails yet?

robert_foss 4y ago

As a mailing-list bound software professional, this is wonderful news. Maybe one day we will be free of software development on MLs.

clircle 4y ago
What's better than a mailing list?
- robert_foss 4y ago
  I'd say that 95% of developers would find a github/gitlab type interface more productive and easy to pick up.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    The remaining 5% know how to use git
    - robert_foss 4y ago
      That's kinda of elitist. And very likely not true.
      - ilyt 4y ago
        neither is 95% number, it was a joke
    - chpatrick 4y ago
      Git has nothing to do with discussion and issue tracking.
      - sleepydog 4y ago
        git has a built-in email command.
      - ilyt 4y ago

uri4 4y ago

Many OS projects closed their mailing lists. Google groups become unusable, and maintaining your own infrastructure is pain. Plus many OS devs resigned on providing unpaid customer support. So far Github issues seems to be a good place for relevant bug reports. And people who need help (and paid) have direct phone number.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

aliqot 4y ago

gnome3 is the best thing to happen to kde.

chaz6 4y ago

I would be happy if projects would convert their mailing lists to newsgroups. They are the perfect forum for discussions. The main benefits being that I can download all the historical messages easily (difficult with mailing lists), and I can use an interface that I am accustomed to no matter the provider (difficult with web forums where each uses their own theme).

zurb 4y ago

Closing mailing lists is another step away from the free Internet. Mailing lists have searchable, multiple, non-centralized archives and are harder to censor. Discourse is centralized, moderators delete messages, rename and manipulate threads. The inner circle has all the power. Upvotes induce groupthink and cliques.

justaj 4y ago
What about something like Matrix.org?

keeperoftruth 4y ago

Any project relying on python will eventually die.

dragonwriter 4y ago
Any project will eventually die.
- yasinaydin 4y ago
  Any will eventually die.