Thanks, Jason.
Nudge to the group; 11 more days to comment.
-Sumana
On 4/14/20 9:20 PM, Jason R. Coombs wrote:
My initial reaction was that I _need_ this list, but after a moment’s
consideration, I think you’re right. +1
On 13 Apr, 2020, at 22:18, Sumana Harihareswara wrote:
TL;DR: ok to archive this Google group? Reply by May 12th.
Below: Context and proposal, reasoning, and timeline.
Context & proposal:
People talk about Python packaging problems, work, and plans in many different
media: https://discuss.python.org/ , distutils-sig, blogs, Twitter, conference
talks, IRC, https://python.zulipchat.com/ , individual GitHub issues on several
different repositories, Stack Overflow, and more. So people frequently ask me:
where should I go to keep up, or to announce something or ask for feedback?
It's hard to guide them, because of this proliferation and fragmentation. And
people have commented on that before, both senior folks like Donald[0], and
people who are earlier in the learning curve[1].
We can't and shouldn't stop people from talking about Python packaging on
social media, at conferences, and so on. But three mailing lists/forums on
nearly identical topics strikes me as more than we need.
So I suggest that, one month from now, we stop posting to this list
(pypa-dev@googlegroups.com) and essentially archive it.
Reasoning (why close THIS one?):
We now have three mailing list-type places to talk about Python packaging tools
and progress. All of them allow both reading and posting from the web or from
an email client, and all of them have web archives with built-in search.
Generally, the people who want to talk about one of these topics want to hear
about the same topics (things happening in PyPA and about related things in
Python that will affect PyPA) no matter what venue they're in.
1. pypa-dev (here). Started in 2013. About 5 posts in the past month, mostly
cross-posted to other places as well. Hosted by Google in a closed-source
application that doesn't seem to get much love from Google's product folks.
2. The distutils-sig mailing list[2] which has expanded in its scope. It's a
place to discuss and resolve problems that cut across different parts of the
Python packaging ecosystem, and to announce new releases or in-progress work.
You can log in an account, or with Facebook, GitHub, GitLab, or Google
authentication. About 12 threads in the past month. Hosted by Python Software
Foundation with an open source application that's under active development.
3. The Packaging category on Python's Discourse forum
https://discuss.python.org/c/packaging , which started about a year and a half
ago[3]. Very wide scope. You can log in with an account, or with Facebook or
GitHub or via email. About 21 posts per month. Hosted by PSF with an open
source application that's under active development.
Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe there is a function being served by having a mailing list that
is specifically labelled "PyPA" (for instance, we could add "get on the Google Group
and that makes you a member of PyPA" to the pypa.io docs[4]). Maybe there are people actively
reading/posting here who feel unwelcome on the other two lists/forums, because of atmosphere or
user interface. As a person doing a bunch of work on PyPA stuff over the past ~2.5 years, I haven't
noticed either of those conditions, so please speak up if I'm wrong, or if there's some other
reason to keep this Google group going.
Timeline and methods:
Here's what I suggest, and what I will carry out if there is no objection.
In one month, on May 13th, I would verify that no one has argued here for why
this Google group should continue to be open for posting. Or, even if a few
people have objected to closing the list, I would check for rough consensus,
especially of people who are doing SOMETHING productive having to do with PyPA
(teaching, answering questions online or in person, running key infrastructure,
writing documentation, making or fixing software, etc.).
I would post a final message to this list, marking its close and suggesting
that people use distutils-sig or discuss.python.org instead.
Then, I would stop members from posting to this Google group. That is, I would
stop members from creating new posts, but leave past posts up at their current
URLs, so links, browsing and search would work.
And then I would look through relevant documentation within PyPA repositories
to see what needs updating (READMEs and so on pointing to the old list), and
submit pull requests.
I appreciate the work folks here have done to carry forward Python packaging
over the past several years. I don't mean to diminish that or to insult anyone
here. I want to help us out, and I think closing this list will help focus that
energy better. But I am open to hearing that I am wrong.
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Changeset Consulting
https://changeset.nyc
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