I also completely agree with Phil that this would need to be discussed
in the larger context of OpenJDK before it could be considered.
The OpenJDK organization intentionally does not use the GitHub issue
tracker, Wiki, or discussion forums. I suspect there will be resistance
to revisiting this.
If you or Michael do want to bring it up, the best place to discuss it
would be disc...@openjdk.java.net since this is more of a policy
discussion than a technical one (the skara-dev list is for technical
discussions).
https://mail.openjdk.java.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss
And yes I realize that finding the right list isn't always obvious or
easy. That problem isn't specific to whether we use mailing lists,
Wikis, or some discussion group. It's a general problem of how to
organize discussions for a large organization with many sub-groups /
areas of interest. There's always the tension between too many and too
few different groupings.
-- Kevin
On 8/19/2021 11:28 PM, Sebastian Stenzel wrote:
I am among the younger people here on the mailing lists (at least I think so)
and I can very much relate to what Michael suggests. So here is my personal
answer to the _why_ question:
Mailing lists create an enormous barrier to external devs like myself who are
willing to contribute:
* Signing up to a means of the 80s feels just strange
* Signing up to _any_ additional tool is deterring (same holds true for JBS),
especially when you're used to low-threshold contributions to other projects
can be
* Therefore, signing up feels like a liability that you may not want to commit
to, if you merely want to express your support for a single comment
* It can be hard to find the correct mailing list for the topic you want to
discuss
* You'll
* either receive digests and miss a topic you're interested in
* or dozens of additional mails each day, alienating people who just want
to follow specific discussions
* No proper formatting
* No proper linking to code, issues, PRs, ...
* Hard to track diverging discussions
* Very hard to search - I basically need to use Google and restrict the search
to some mail archive
* Linking to different topics means you need to either quote the whole thing or
link to an archive
On the other hand I see one important argument against GitHub Discussions: We
have no control over how Discussions will change in the future. Even if they
seem suitable today, we can't tell if it may be necessary to switch to yet
another tool in 5 years. Each time you switch, you strip connections to
discussions that took place on the previous platform. Switching tools always
comes with a commitment to it and bears this risk.
That said, I agree that this may not be something for OpenJFX to decide for its
own. Maybe this discussion belongs on the skara mailing list (did I mention
that it's hard to find the right mailing list, a topic belongs to?)
Furthermore, changing a process is never easy and will scare people used to the
status quo, especially when they've grown familiar with the old process over
decades. I've seen this in companies many times. If there is no pressure to
change, better tooling is not a strong enough argument to change processes.
On 20. Aug 2021, at 03:39, openjfx-dev-requ...@openjdk.java.net wrote:
From: Philip Race <philip.r...@oracle.com <mailto:philip.r...@oracle.com>>
Subject: Re: Moving discussions to GitHub?
Date: 20. August 2021 at 03:39:04 CEST
To: Michael Strauß <michaelstr...@gmail.com <mailto:michaelstr...@gmail.com>>,
"openjfx-dev@openjdk.java.net <mailto:openjfx-dev@openjdk.java.net> List"
<openjfx-dev@openjdk.java.net <mailto:openjfx-dev@openjdk.java.net>>
I am not sure that openjfx as an openjdk sponsored project can unilaterally
decide this.
Nor sure that it makes sense either to be different.
And I've not felt the same disconnection you cite or have any idea why
this would be better or even match how we work.
-phil.
On 8/19/21 5:50 PM, Michael Strauß wrote:
With the GitHub Discussions feature now out of beta*, I'd like to
start a conversation on whether it could be a good idea for the
OpenJFX project to embrace it as the primary place to discuss and
interact with the broader community.
While I understand that mailing lists have a long tradition with
OpenJDK projects, I feel that they are not a great tool for building
and maintaining a community. It's pretty hard to search archived mails
and find relevant information or past discussions. Sure, you can do
it, but it's not very inviting and accessible.
It also seems to me that the mailing list is very disconnected from
the people actually using OpenJFX. Since most people already are on
GitHub, and most people interested in OpenJFX will find its GitHub
repository, it would also seem to be the most logical place to invite
people into the community and join our discussions.
After all, growing and maintaining a community is fundamental for
every open-source project to remain relevant.
* https://github.blog/2021-08-17-github-discussions-out-of-beta
<https://github.blog/2021-08-17-github-discussions-out-of-beta>
