On Aug 21, 2011, at 8:01 AM, Terry Ellison wrote: > Sorry, I had to reformat this thread as it was otherwise unreadable >>>>> Clearly, the success of any FLOSS package depends on the support of a >>>>> committed core of able developers. However, the success of OOo also >>>>> depends on a wide community of contributors, documentation and >>>>> tutorial developers, community supporter and even just power-users who >>>>> can evangelise the product. >>>>> >>>>> We have historically encouraged this community to use their oo.o >>>>> mailboxes to foster a sense of identity. I know that I used to use my >>>>> [email protected] address a lot: answering end-user emails and as >>>>> my email address for a range of forums, wikis and similar services. I >>>>> was and am proud to be associated with this project. However, because >>>>> I realise that the address might go away, I had to trawl through my >>>>> emails to work out which services I had subscribed to using >>>>> [email protected] and rehook them to another mailbox: a real pain -- but >>>>> less painful than suddenly finding out that I had become disconnected >>>>> from them. So my answer is that alienating our extended community of >>>>> supporters would not be something that we should do lightly. OOo >>>>> depends on their support. >>>> >>>> Likewise, I use it all the time, I would be strongly opposed to losing >>>> [email protected] redirects for all of the reasons Terry outlines. Also long term >>>> users, (I dare say I'm not the only one) would have considerable issues >>>> tracing >>>> every single connection that uses that email. >>>> >>>> Administratively and in terms of resource consumption, I don't see a big >>>> issue leaving it as is. >>> >>> Are you asking Oracle to continue hosting an email service for a project >>> they are no longer involved with? >>> >>> If yes, I doubt very much they will oblige. >> >> I wasn't asking that, previous discussion had pointed to redirecting OOo >> lists >> to the Apache ooo lists >>> If not please explain the ease in which this transfer of email accounts, >>> mailing lists, archives, dns, integration with our systems will take place. >>> Your one sentence makes it sound like a 5 minute job. >> >> I thought this was all being done in any case if only to retain connect for >> users of legacy OOo. Many email addresses have to be retained because our >> users are not au faix with the machinations of Oracle and Apache. Simply that >> @openoffice.org will get them what they need in terms of support whether it >> be >> users@, discuss@ or "whatever MarCon"@. That will not disappear overnight. >> >> > Gavin, I don't think that anyone is asking Oracle to continue to host this. > The MX record for OpenOffice.org is now assigned to ASF.
MX record is still pointing at Oracle until we decide what to do and then have time to implement it. > I feel that we are saying that this is one of the bundle of services that > comes with OOo, and we should have a continuity plan for it: either: > > * migrate the service or > * consciously and deliberately decide to kill it understanding that > this will be disruptive and send out a pretty strong message to > the extended OOo community which uses it. We should consider the strong likelihood that those that have heavily used their OOo email forwarders are likely to be the people we want to keep interested in the project. I just went through changing the email that I used for over a decade. No way can people untangle everything in less than several months. Is there consensus that over some period of time there should be no (or very, very few) individual email forwarders? If this time period is short then perhaps the Oracle MX can continue long enough. If longer then I would consider that we should start by migrating at least the significant portion of the email addresses. We can decide if significant is a number of the whole, or significant individuals. > Yes, I see this as a migration and service provision issue, but not a major > administration issue going forward because we can freeze the existing list > and then go through some retirement plan over the next 12 months, say. At > it's heart this is an email redirector just like [email protected] -- albeit > with a considerably longer but no static mapping list. Exactly. > Clearly someone has to own this, and I do think that the plan and effort for > this needs to have a /project/ owner who is willing to would with the @infra > team here. Maybe I will end up adding it my list if no one else comes > forward, though this would require Oracle to give us some time by continuing > to host the service in the short term. I would help if there are more than you and I willing. Other volunteers? > Though I am starting to think of the concept of committer on this > "OpenOffice.org project" a bit of an oxymoron :( Terry We have at least three types of committers. (1) People being paid. (2) People who are "retired". (3) People with full time jobs. Those in the first group need to leave time for those in groups (2) and (3). I am in group (3). I have learned to let these conversations go slower so that the word can turn :-) Best Regards, Dave
