Stuart Herbert posted <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, excerpted below, on Mon, 31 Oct 2005 19:05:33 +0000:
> The original problem is that GWN, forums, planet.g.o, gentoo-dev - even > together, we've seen that they just don't reach enough of our user base. > Aren't we just going to reach the same people by putting more news in > the same old place? How is that going to reach the people we're not > reaching today? There is /one/ way to reach /everyone/ doing an upgrade (well, those that do emerge -a or -p, anyway, and those that don't, well... they apparently /like/ being left in the dark, and doing perhaps risky upgrades without knowing what's going on, so let's not disturb their "enjoyment" <g>). That ONE way: Push a "null" portage -rX upgrade to both stable and ~ versions, the sole purpose of which is to print the *VITALLY* *IMPORTANT* *ANNOUNCEMENT* as an einfo both after the "upgrade", and as part of the "portage will stop merging at this point and recalculate" message one gets with a -p or -a. (For double-sure effect, make the first emerge action after the upgrade /only/ print the message, doing nothing else. Further emerges would then go back to normal behavior.) Because emerging portage always stops an ongoing emerge to recalculate what's left after the new portage is merged, that should mean virtually everyone should see it. For a one-shot, vitally important message, that'll be seen by more than anything else. If it's not important enough to do this, than it's probably not all that important, for those who aren't making an effort to follow news anyway, after all. That should address the "reaching people who aren't reading anyway" problem. Once it is settled what the single point of news delivery will be, if it's considered to be important enough to reach /everyone/, even those who don't follow current news outlets to see it, this would be the single most effective way to do it. This is rather the "nuclear option", yes, but it should demonstrate the point. There's a point beyond which it's simply not worth worrying about whether a message gets out or not. A point at which one can say, "Open your eyes and read, and you have nothing to bitch about if you simply refuse to do so!" If the message is put out to all the usual outlets (it's already out here, put it in GWN and on the front page of gentoo.org and on the forums and on the announce list and posted to the user list), that's gotta be considered "good enough", unless it is decided to "go nuclear" using an approach similar to the above. Anybody not getting the message after delivery to all /those/ places... should be considered not WANTING to get the message, as they've demonstrated just that by their actions, if not their words. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman in http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
