On Saturday, Jan 11, Dr Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
<snip>
> I wasn't party to the decision to change the lists, but I think that
> it is an attempt to spread the support burden more thinly.
> Until this change, [EMAIL PROTECTED] was the advertised place for
> people with problems to ask for help.
> This was a closed, subscription only list, which meant that a very
> few experienced developers were forced to handle all support calls.
> I guess that eventually this has got too much for them, so rather than
> abandon free email user support for XFree86, they moved the support calls
> to a public list where a lot more people with the knowledge to answer the
> questions can see them.
>
> If everyone tries to answer one or two (or six) questions a week
> from a struggling beginner, then the load on each of is is very light,
> and XFree86 gains lots of satisfied new users.
> Unfortunately a mailing-list isn't a good mechanism for this;
> for each of us to answer 3 questions, we all have to read 300 or 3000.
>
<snip>
>
> Should XFree86 abandon free user support (and leave it to people
> like Red Hat who charge for it) ?
> or can you think of a way of distributing the support queries
> amongst the developers out on the internet, in such a way that
> every developer only gets a few calls, and every call gets to
> someone who can assist with that problem ?
This may seem like a slightly fantastical idea, but what if mails to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] are sent back an automated response (similar to the
responses sent during the subscription process), explaining that the user
should send their question / problem / whatever to a more specific mailing
list @xfree86.org , and enumerating the currently available mailing lists?
This list might be something like:
ati
matrox
nvidia
[other cards...]
redhat
debian
freebsd
[other vendors...]
fonts
dri
xvideo
xlib
bugfixes
[etc, etc...]
For instance, someone with a problem with their ATI card might then forward
their query to [EMAIL PROTECTED] , while someone with this recurring "fixed
font" problem might forward to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . As problems appear and
disappear, lists could be created and retired (for this reason, the only
list "advertised" to the outside world would be [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- the
others are listed in the automated response). If there's a problem which
can be dealt with better by another list, the problem could be forwarded
to that list, but if a user just SPAMs all the lists with their problem
(as no doubt will happen from time to time), a reader of list XXX need feel
no guilt about simply deleting something which should have been sent to list
[EMAIL PROTECTED] .
If there's a problem which is beyond the expertise of the readers of that
list (for instance, if the user has actually uncovered a real problem with
the software), there could be an "experts" list -- not advertised in the
automated response, but known to the readers of the support lists.
This would help filter out the real problems (which might need to be
addressed by people familiar with the internals of the code or with very
specific details of the installation) from the "HELP!!! my startx is not
working!!!!1" problems.
Of course, hopefully a few of the "experts" would be generous enough with
their time to also participate in the support list(s) most aligned with
their own expertise (for instance, the developer or maintainer of driver
XXX might read support list XXX).
Perhaps it could even be a requirement of subscription to a developers' list
or a discussion list that they also subscribe to two or more support lists
(and I really think there is a need for separate developers' or discussion
lists -- combining the development/discussion lists and the support lists
could kill a lot of development and discussion).
For instance, I'm here because I'm interested in learning about the
internals of XFree86 and its development, but I'd be willing to sit on
an nvidia support list (since that's the card I have in my own machine)
or an xlib-programming support list and contribute what little I can.
I really can't help with questions about ATI drivers, Matrox drivers, etc,
since I don't have any experience with them.
No doubt, people would complain about being forced to subscribe to two
support lists, but they might care to remember that the alternative is
receiving ALL the support mail in their inbox, every day.
Jimmy
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