Hello subscribers, As laid out about one year ago, I'd like to merge opensc-devel and opensc-user mailing lists a few days after OpenSC 0.12.2 is released on 10.06.2011. This will mean automagically subscribing all opensc-user subscribers to opensc-devel. I wish there was a list named opensc-list or something similar instead of opensc-devel, so that there was no temptation to start thinking along the lines of "users and developers are different creatures, thus they need separate lists". But opensc-devel has already great traction and the most potential at the moment, thus the current list with the same name should be preserved.
This is a forward notice to those who definitely resist the idea, so that you could unsubscribe from opensc-user before the merge happens. The overall goal is to simplify the life of all people involved as well as to increase the "success rate" of posts: - traffic on opensc-user [2] is small compared to opensc-devel [1] - traffic on opensc-user has declined during the past year whereas traffic on opensc-devel has increased [1], [2] - subscribers of opensc-devel and opensc-user overlap ~30%: one list less to follow and manage for them - moderation (deleting caught spam, rescuing interesting e-mails from lazy posters (non-members, oversize attachments etc)) requires less work. - less confusion for new posters: they don't have to ask themselves "Which list should I post to?" or double-post - more subscribers in a single list means more eyes and brains on every posted problem, thus a bigger chance of getting a useful response from the community - what is the essence of a mailing list in the first place - splitting developer and user lists would make sense if the amount of posts (or topic noise) on a single list would be above a critical limit, which is IMHO not the case with OpenSC - many issues will anyway require developer intervention to become solved There are also cons: - dislike and resulting unsubscribe from opensc-user subscribers who will start to see considerably more posts that maybe are not understandable to them - but developers would really need a better contact with users when developing software anyway and having inactive subscribers on a low volume mailing list makes not much sense either. - dislike and resulting unsubscribe from opensc-devel subscribers who see a slight increase of "boring small problems of casual users" type of posts - which should be a non-option, as most active developers seem to be subscribed to both lists anyway If you have any *practical* concerns about this merge, please voice out now. Best, Martin [1] http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.encryption.opensc.devel [2] http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.encryption.opensc.user -- @MartinPaljak.net +3725156495 _______________________________________________ opensc-devel mailing list opensc-devel@lists.opensc-project.org http://www.opensc-project.org/mailman/listinfo/opensc-devel
