Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Gnome Project is closing all its mailing lists

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 95 posts

Re: The Gnome Project is closing all its mailing lists

#11

Post by robert_foss »

e3bc54b2 wrote: post #7
robert_foss wrote: post #4

As a mailing-list bound software professional, this is wonderful news. Maybe one day we will be free of software development on MLs.

As someone who formerly used to be in no-ML camp, I am proudly converted. Mailing Lists are decidedly democratic, and have least barrier to entry. It is also technically superior in providing unified interface to patches, communication, bug reports and everything adjacent. Compared to that any fancy service provides lock-in under thin veil of "friendly interface".

I think most developers would find it easier to contribute to a github/gitlab/gitea project than a ML one. Besides, there are definite downsides to like MLs, like CI integration and pulling patches to local trees.

Now, there are strengths too. Like being archived easily & having threaded conversations integrated.

Re: The Gnome Project is closing all its mailing lists

#12

Post by robert_foss »

clircle wrote: post #5
robert_foss wrote: post #4

As a mailing-list bound software professional, this is wonderful news. Maybe one day we will be free of software development on MLs.

What's better than a mailing list?

I'd say that 95% of developers would find a github/gitlab type interface more productive and easy to pick up.

Re: The Gnome Project is closing all its mailing lists

#13

Post by lapinot »

teekert wrote: post #3

I love Gnome, they piss some people off by making radical choices, but slowly they keep iterating and coming up with something nice over a long term. They have a vision and stick to it for years. I'm happy they don't just feel offended by posts like yours and act like short term pleasers. It's foss, you can fork it, you can use KDE. you can switch to Windows if you want. That's what free as in freedom is. Personally…

> they piss some people off by making radical choices

No, people are not pissed off by the radicality of the choices. Stop taking people for uneducated jokers. People are pissed off because they understand the choices and do not agree with them or what they imply. Gamification, pushing apps and app stores, using the same disempowering concepts as mobile plateforms, changing design every so often for no good reason, focusing on simple design over features to the extreme which is again disempowering users, disregarding high performance requirements or assumptions such as recent hardware, stop pushing touchscreens. Nobody is arguing against having clean and accessible design for newcomers and nobody is saying that all of gnome is bad. It's just the same kind of critics that happen against wikimedia foundation or against mozilla: it is addressed to the management and the people that control the marketing and reads basically: cut the crap, stop doing futile stuff, your core things are good but they have been in better shape and would need more actual useful work, your goal is not only low entry barrier but also and very importantly high ceiling, if you target entry users your goal is to educate and teach. Also you are not a product (which needs to succeed and keep growing) but a tool, for users, by users, which solves a given goal and will be irrelevant when this goal becomes irrelevant, and that's ok.

Re: The Gnome Project is closing all its mailing lists

#14

Post by mschuster91 »

e3bc54b2 wrote: post #7
robert_foss wrote: post #4

As a mailing-list bound software professional, this is wonderful news. Maybe one day we will be free of software development on MLs.

As someone who formerly used to be in no-ML camp, I am proudly converted. Mailing Lists are decidedly democratic, and have least barrier to entry. It is also technically superior in providing unified interface to patches, communication, bug reports and everything adjacent. Compared to that any fancy service provides lock-in under thin veil of "friendly interface".

> Mailing Lists are decidedly democratic, and have least barrier to entry.

Oh no, they are not. I loathe projects that only do mailing list support, because that means I have to subscribe to the mailing list, create a new folder and filter rule so that the mailing list doesn't flood my inbox with stuff I don't care about, and once the problem is solved, leave the mailing list, remove the filter and folder.

In contrast, issues on GitHub/GitLab or public self-hosted GitLab instances only require me signing up once (and in most cases via some form of SSO), I can add attachments such as screenshots or detailed logs that would just blow through the ridiculous size caps on mails, and I only get notifications on topics I explicitly subscribe for.

Re: The Gnome Project is closing all its mailing lists

#15

Post by bitwize »

clircle wrote: post #5
robert_foss wrote: post #4

As a mailing-list bound software professional, this is wonderful news. Maybe one day we will be free of software development on MLs.

What's better than a mailing list?

Discord. Twitch chat. You can raise bugs as you watch the developer's anime avatar write the code.

Re: The Gnome Project is closing all its mailing lists

#16

Post by okasaki »

henriquez wrote: post #10
okasaki wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what? I think it's generally agreed that their main product, the GNOME UI, uh, sucks.

I like it

Well, that's okay. But lots of people don't and I've never seen anyone using it. I've seen Unity, XFCE, i3, and KDE, but no GNOME.

Re: The Gnome Project is closing all its mailing lists

#17

Post by hactually »

okasaki wrote: post #9
teekert wrote: post #3

I love Gnome, they piss some people off by making radical choices, but slowly they keep iterating and coming up with something nice over a long term. They have a vision and stick to it for years. I'm happy they don't just feel offended by posts like yours and act like short term pleasers. It's foss, you can fork it, you can use KDE. you can switch to Windows if you want. That's what free as in freedom is. Personally…

Like what? I think it's generally agreed that their main product, the GNOME UI, uh, sucks.

I also like it. plenty of the guys I collaborate with do too. what data are you going from?

Re: The Gnome Project is closing all its mailing lists

#18

Post by aliqot »

okasaki wrote: post #9
teekert wrote: post #3

I love Gnome, they piss some people off by making radical choices, but slowly they keep iterating and coming up with something nice over a long term. They have a vision and stick to it for years. I'm happy they don't just feel offended by posts like yours and act like short term pleasers. It's foss, you can fork it, you can use KDE. you can switch to Windows if you want. That's what free as in freedom is. Personally…

Like what? I think it's generally agreed that their main product, the GNOME UI, uh, sucks.

gnome was the chosen ui and now its terrible, aiming for a mythical apple convert who wants a touch friendly interface

gnome 2 was the truth. im curious if id still be running gui's today if gnome didnt crap the bed so bad, im mainly in tmux now.

Re: The Gnome Project is closing all its mailing lists

#19

Post by [deleted] »

uri4 wrote: post #6

Many OS projects closed their mailing lists. Google groups become unusable, and maintaining your own infrastructure is pain. Plus many OS devs resigned on providing unpaid customer support. So far Github issues seems to be a good place for relevant bug reports. And people who need help (and paid) have direct phone number.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN