[opam-devel] [Caml-list] OPAM mailing-lists ERRATUM

[Amir Chaudhry]

On 7 Mar 2013, at 07:22, Roberto Di Cosmo <roberto at dicosmo.org> wrote:

> I think that opam fills a major need of OCaml users:
> even if it is still young, needs polishing and will
> surely evolve quickly, it already provides a very
> valuable tool.
> 
> But tools are useless without a user community, and
> users need a place to discuss, exchange ideas, ask
> for help, share tips and tricks, without fear of
> asking silly questions.

I agree!

> Hundreds of successful free software projects use a
> -devel mailing list for developer discussions, and a
> -users mailing list for user exchanges.

Ok, but is this a _necessary_ requirement to being successful? That's not quite what you state but you seem to support that suggestion.  I completely understand the usefulness of a -devel list but less so the -users list (since I'm not power user by any means).

> So I strongly believe we need an opam-users list
> too (and I actually do not care where the list is
> hosted, as far as the hosting service is solid, and
> archives are searchable and backed up).

I'm not against the idea of a -users list but I'm not one of the people who'd use it (though perhaps I'm misunderstanding the use-case).  When I have any kind of question or confusion about something, my first resort is to google it.  I'd typically look to see if others have had similar issues and would expect to find things on stack-overflow, blogs and other things on the web.  This is usually sufficient for most of my problems.  

The following might help explain my viewpoint. I think of a 'software community' as a series of concentric circles with creators/maintainers right in the middle and the random public in the outermost ring.  I'd argue that mailing lists only serve those nearer the centre (to varying degrees).  Information scattered around the web, and well-indexed by search engines, better serves those nearer the outer rings (where I'd put myself).  

While I completely and whole-heartedly agree with your point about needing a vibrant user community, I'm essentially (1) questioning what that actually looks like and (2) trying to decouple it from mailing-lists.  I'm basically arguing that the needs once served by user lists can largely be met by other means.

I don't have particularly strong opinions on this (other than "<your-favourite-search-engine> should be able to get you to the answer", wherever that is).  I merely wanted to present a counterpoint to what I felt could be taken as 'mailing list -> community'.  If you, or others, have more information or resources on community-building in open-source projects I'd be very keen to learn more (though perhaps we should do that off the main list).

Best wishes,
Amir

> 
> --
> Roberto
> 
> On Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 12:19:24AM +0100, Fabrice Le Fessant wrote:
>> Finally, there will be only one mailing-list devoted to OPAM (for
>> both users and developers discussions), it is now
>> opam-devel at lists.ocaml.org, and you can subscribe on this page:
>> 
>> http://lists.ocaml.org/listinfo/opam-devel
>> 
>> --Fabrice
>> 
>> On 03/06/2013 11:51 PM, Fabrice Le Fessant wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>>  I was proposed to either move these two mailing-lists to
>>> http://lists.ocaml.org/, to improve their visibility, or to have them
>>> merged into the more generic platform at lists.ocaml.org mailing-list.
>>> 
>>>  I will send a new mail when we have reached a consensus on the best
>>> solution, but in the meantime, don't subscribe to them as I won't be
>>> able to easily move subscriptions from one system to the other one.
>>> 
>>> --Fabrice
>>> 
>>> On 03/06/2013 09:46 PM, Fabrice Le Fessant wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>> 
>>>>  I just created two mailing-lists for questions and specific
>>>> discussions about OPAM, "opam-users at inria.fr" for discussions about how
>>>> to use OPAM, and "opam-devel at inria.fr" for discussions about the code of
>>>> OPAM (for developers only, or interactions with them).
>>>> 
>>>> --Fabrice
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Roberto Di Cosmo
> 
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