On Jun 9, 2021, at 10:50 AM, Philip Reames via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:> Specific to the dev lists, I'm very hesitant about moving from mailing lists to discourse. Why? > > Well, the first and most basic is I'm worried about having core infrastructure out of our own control. For all their problems, mailing lists are widely supported, there are many vendors/contractors available. For discourse, as far as I can tell, there's one vendor. It's very much a take it or leave it situation. The ability to preserve discussion archives through a transition away from discourse someday concerns me. I regularly and routinely need to dig back through llvm-dev threads which are years old. I've also recently had some severely negative customer experiences with other tools (most recently discord), and the thought of having my employability and ability to contribute to open source tied to my ability to get a response from customer service teams at some third party vendor I have no leverage with, bluntly, scares me. > > Second, I feel that we've overstated the difficulty of maintaining mailing lists. I have to acknowledge that I have little first hand experience administering mailman, so maybe I'm way off here. >Hi Philip, First, despite the similar names, Discord is very different than Discourse. Here I’m only commenting about Discourse, I have no opinion about Discord. In this case, I think we need to highly weight the opinions of the people actively mainlining the existing systems. It has become clear that the priority isn’t “control our own lists”, it is “make sure they stay up” and “get LLVM people out of maintaining them”. The ongoing load of maintaining these lists (including moderation) and of dealing with the security issues that keep coming up are carried by several individuals, not by the entire community. I’m concerned about those individuals, but I’m also more broadly concerned about *any* individuals being solely responsible for LLVM infra. Effectively every case we’ve had where an individual has driving LLVM infra turns out to be a problem. LLVM as a project isn’t good at running web scale infra, but we highly depend on it. It seems clear to me that we should outsource this to a proven vendor. Your concerns about discourse seem very similar to the discussion about moving to Github (being a single vendor who was once much smaller than Microsoft). I think your concerns are best addressed by having the IWG propose an answer to “what is our plan if Discourse-the-company goes sideways?" -Chris -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/attachments/20210621/48a9116e/attachment.html>
David Blaikie via llvm-dev
2021-Jun-21 19:58 UTC
[llvm-dev] [cfe-dev] Mailing List Status Update
On Mon, Jun 21, 2021 at 12:53 PM Chris Lattner via cfe-dev < cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:> On Jun 9, 2021, at 10:50 AM, Philip Reames via llvm-dev < > llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote: > > Specific to the dev lists, I'm very hesitant about moving from mailing > lists to discourse. Why? > > Well, the first and most basic is I'm worried about having core > infrastructure out of our own control. For all their problems, mailing > lists are widely supported, there are many vendors/contractors available. > For discourse, as far as I can tell, there's one vendor. It's very much a > take it or leave it situation. The ability to preserve discussion archives > through a transition away from discourse someday concerns me. I regularly > and routinely need to dig back through llvm-dev threads which are years > old. I've also recently had some severely negative customer experiences > with other tools (most recently discord), and the thought of having my > employability and ability to contribute to open source tied to my ability > to get a response from customer service teams at some third party vendor I > have no leverage with, bluntly, scares me. > > Second, I feel that we've overstated the difficulty of maintaining mailing > lists. I have to acknowledge that I have little first hand experience > administering mailman, so maybe I'm way off here. > > Hi Philip, > > First, despite the similar names, Discord is very different than > Discourse. Here I’m only commenting about Discourse, I have no opinion > about Discord. > > > In this case, I think we need to highly weight the opinions of the people > actively mainlining the existing systems. It has become clear that the > priority isn’t “control our own lists”, it is “make sure they stay up” and > “get LLVM people out of maintaining them”. > > The ongoing load of maintaining these lists (including moderation) and of > dealing with the security issues that keep coming up are carried by several > individuals, not by the entire community. I’m concerned about those > individuals, but I’m also more broadly concerned about *any* individuals > being solely responsible for LLVM infra. Effectively every case we’ve had > where an individual has driving LLVM infra turns out to be a problem. LLVM > as a project isn’t good at running web scale infra, but we highly depend on > it. > > It seems clear to me that we should outsource this to a proven vendor. > Your concerns about discourse seem very similar to the discussion about > moving to Github (being a single vendor who was once much smaller than > Microsoft). I think your concerns are best addressed by having the IWG > propose an answer to “what is our plan if Discourse-the-company goes > sideways?" >Might also be worth some details on: "Why is Discourse more suitable than a hosted mailman solution?" - if the main goal is to get LLVM individual contributors out of maintaining infrastructure, moving to a hosted version of the current solution seems lower friction/feature creep/etc? (though I realize moving between solutions is expensive, and it may be worthwhile gaining other benefits that Discourse may provide while we address the original/motivating issue of maintenance) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/attachments/20210621/8d3335a0/attachment.html>
James Y Knight via llvm-dev
2021-Jun-23 01:01 UTC
[llvm-dev] [cfe-dev] Mailing List Status Update
On Mon, Jun 21, 2021 at 3:53 PM Chris Lattner via cfe-dev < cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:> On Jun 9, 2021, at 10:50 AM, Philip Reames via llvm-dev < > llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote: > > Specific to the dev lists, I'm very hesitant about moving from mailing > lists to discourse. Why? > > Well, the first and most basic is I'm worried about having core > infrastructure out of our own control. For all their problems, mailing > lists are widely supported, there are many vendors/contractors available. > For discourse, as far as I can tell, there's one vendor. It's very much a > take it or leave it situation. The ability to preserve discussion archives > through a transition away from discourse someday concerns me. I regularly > and routinely need to dig back through llvm-dev threads which are years > old. I've also recently had some severely negative customer experiences > with other tools (most recently discord), and the thought of having my > employability and ability to contribute to open source tied to my ability > to get a response from customer service teams at some third party vendor I > have no leverage with, bluntly, scares me. > > Second, I feel that we've overstated the difficulty of maintaining mailing > lists. I have to acknowledge that I have little first hand experience > administering mailman, so maybe I'm way off here. > > Hi Philip, > > First, despite the similar names, Discord is very different than > Discourse. Here I’m only commenting about Discourse, I have no opinion > about Discord. > > > In this case, I think we need to highly weight the opinions of the people > actively mainlining the existing systems. It has become clear that the > priority isn’t “control our own lists”, it is “make sure they stay up” and > “get LLVM people out of maintaining them”. > > The ongoing load of maintaining these lists (including moderation) and of > dealing with the security issues that keep coming up are carried by several > individuals, not by the entire community. I’m concerned about those > individuals, but I’m also more broadly concerned about *any* individuals > being solely responsible for LLVM infra. Effectively every case we’ve had > where an individual has driving LLVM infra turns out to be a problem. LLVM > as a project isn’t good at running web scale infra, but we highly depend on > it. >I agree that the maintenance issue is definitely a problem which needs to be solved. And there is some urgency, given the recent problems which resulted in a need to manually subscribe people to the lists. But, the proposal on the table doesn't appear to actually address this issue, because the maintainers of llvm mailman will still continue to be responsible for keeping it functioning, for the mailing lists which were not proposed to be migrated. On the other hand, having osci.io run a mailman3 service for us does seem to be a way to solve this -- and doesn't require discarding mailing lists entirely. It seems clear to me that we should outsource this to a proven vendor.> Your concerns about discourse seem very similar to the discussion about > moving to Github (being a single vendor who was once much smaller than > Microsoft). I think your concerns are best addressed by having the IWG > propose an answer to “what is our plan if Discourse-the-company goes > sideways?" >-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/attachments/20210622/4a08d4b7/attachment.html>
On 6/21/21 12:53 PM, Chris Lattner wrote:> On Jun 9, 2021, at 10:50 AM, Philip Reames via llvm-dev > <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote: >> >> Specific to the dev lists, I'm very hesitant about moving from >> mailing lists to discourse. Why? >> >> Well, the first and most basic is I'm worried about having core >> infrastructure out of our own control. For all their problems, >> mailing lists are widely supported, there are many >> vendors/contractors available. For discourse, as far as I can tell, >> there's one vendor. It's very much a take it or leave it situation. >> The ability to preserve discussion archives through a transition away >> from discourse someday concerns me. I regularly and routinely need >> to dig back through llvm-dev threads which are years old. I've also >> recently had some severely negative customer experiences with other >> tools (most recently discord), and the thought of having my >> employability and ability to contribute to open source tied to my >> ability to get a response from customer service teams at some third >> party vendor I have no leverage with, bluntly, scares me. >> >> Second, I feel that we've overstated the difficulty of maintaining >> mailing lists. I have to acknowledge that I have little first hand >> experience administering mailman, so maybe I'm way off here. >> > Hi Philip,Hi Chris,> > First, despite the similar names, Discord is very different than > Discourse. Here I’m only commenting about Discourse, I have no > opinion about Discord.I'm aware, thank you. I'm sorry that my wording seems to have caused confusion on this point.> > > In this case, I think we need to highly weight the opinions of the > people actively mainlining the existing systems. It has become clear > that the priority isn’t “control our own lists”, it is “make sure they > stay up” and “get LLVM people out of maintaining them”. > > The ongoing load of maintaining these lists (including moderation) and > of dealing with the security issues that keep coming up are carried by > several individuals, not by the entire community. I’m concerned about > those individuals, but I’m also more broadly concerned about *any* > individuals being solely responsible for LLVM infra. Effectively > every case we’ve had where an individual has driving LLVM infra turns > out to be a problem. LLVM as a project isn’t good at running web > scale infra, but we highly depend on it. > > It seems clear to me that we should outsource this to a proven vendor.I agree with everything you said up to here. The goals make sense, and I fully support them.> Your concerns about discourse seem very similar to the discussion > about moving to Github (being a single vendor who was once much > smaller than Microsoft). I think your concerns are best addressed by > having the IWG propose an answer to “what is our plan if > Discourse-the-company goes sideways?"This is where I disagree. The key point for me is that mailman3 exists and there are commercial vendors who specialize in exactly what we need. I don't object at all to having a proven vendor. I just don't see discourse as being the obvious choice. Now, as I said in my first email, you don't actually need to convince me here. If the move is made to discourse, I will follow. At the end of the day, a decision does need to be made, and I'm willing to defer to those putting in the work. Philip -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/attachments/20210623/96887d03/attachment.html>