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Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2020 03:48:25 +0000
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From: "Ariadne Conill" <ariadne@dereferenced.org>
Message-ID: <66694f73048e047cadbe9e3f715801d8@dereferenced.org>
Subject: mailing lists, processes, modernization
To: ~alpine/users@lists.alpinelinux.org,
 ~alpine/devel@lists.alpinelinux.org

Hello,=0A=0AWhen Alpine was first started, we had a single mailing list, =
alpine-devel,=0Awhich was running on ezmlm.  This served us well for many=
 years, but a few=0Ayears ago, we started to realize that we needed to mo=
dernize the software=0Abeing used in order to mitigate various security a=
nd spam issues with the=0Aezmlm setup.=0A=0AThis lead to Drew DeVault pro=
posing that Alpine use his Sourcehut platform=0Afor mailing lists, which =
we have used for the past 8 months.  Initially,=0Athis was seen as a good=
 solution for the original problems we were having=0Awith the ezmlm-based=
 setup, but some have discontinued using the mailing=0Alists, in some cas=
es leaving the project entirely due to issues the=0ASourcehut software ha=
s processing HTML e-mail, which caused incompatibility=0Awith popular e-m=
ail clients such as the Android GMail client and the iOS=0AEMail client, =
as well as differences in behavior verses the earlier mailing=0Alist syst=
em involving the Sourcehut solution not mailing a copy of the=0Amessage b=
ack to its author.=0A=0AThe reduced participation on the mailing lists, a=
nd thus reduced adherence=0Ato procedure for coordinating system changes =
have reduced its usefulness as=0Asingle source of truth for tracking syst=
em changes.=0A=0AUnfortunately, this brings us to a crossroads: mailing l=
ists that are=0Aboycotted by participants are not a useful communications=
 tool for a=0Aproject, because of the source of truth issue.  In addition=
, the infra=0Ateam has expressed a desire to migrate all applications the=
y manage to=0Arun under Docker, a desire not shared by Drew for the Sourc=
ehut=0Ainfrastructure.=0A=0ASince adoption of the Sourcehut mailing list =
platform, we have also=0Aimplemented GitLab as a Git forge.  GitLab featu=
res high quality issue=0Atracking and integrates with e-mail.  This leads=
 us to my proposal to=0Areplace development mailing lists with GitLab iss=
ues and merge requests.=0A=0AInitially, we discussed the aports mailing l=
ist.  This has been deprecated=0Aand replaced with the new mkmr tool[1]. =
 Many users are now using the mkmr=0Atool and that effort has been consid=
ered largely successful.=0A=0ASo, now we talk about alpine-devel.  In mos=
t cases, it is believed that=0Achange proposals could simply be tracked a=
nd commented on by filing issues=0Aagainst the aports project in GitLab. =
 For larger meta-issues, it is proposed=0Athat we create a project for me=
ta-issues.  This replaces the working=0Aside of alpine-devel with a more =
efficient workflow and restores the single=0Asource of truth for system c=
hanges.=0A=0AFor the support inquiries that get sent to alpine-devel and =
alpine-user,=0AI propose that we use Discourse forums instead.  Discourse=
 is more accessible=0Ato the average user, featuring mobile apps and tons=
 of features.  Discourse=0Aalso supports e-mail for people who still desi=
re to interact with the system=0Ausing e-mail, but the support is limited=
 to replying and creating new threads.=0AThis is believed to be adequate =
for die-hard e-mail users, however.=0A=0AThat leads us to decommissioning=
 of the Sourcehut platform.  We need some=0Amechanism to maintain the lis=
t archives for historical reasons, as the=0Amailing lists served as a sin=
gle source of truth for a long time.  As the=0ASourcehut software is a mo=
stly typical Flask application, it seems plausible=0Athat we could write =
a script to dump the mailing list archives as static=0AHTML pages.  The S=
ourcehut software could then be decommissioned, and=0Amaintaining the mai=
ling list archive would be of minimal impact to the=0Ainfra team.=0A=0ATh=
oughts?=0A=0AAriadne