[RFC] gnucash-patches mailing list

[Chris Shoemaker]

[This proposal has been brewing for several weeks, but has been
expedited by Christian's recent complaint.  I think this will better
address both my concerns and Christian's.]

A couple observations:
  - gnucash-patches is being use for two very different purposes; 1)
user patch submission, 2) syndication of commit messages.
  - responses to messages of either type often belong on -devel.
  - ReplyTo munging moves the discussion to -devel but does have the
traditional downsides of mail header munging.
  - any involved developer doesn't want to miss any conversation that
starts up in response to a commit message on -patches.
  - nor any of the dozen or so per year user-submitted patches.
  - any such developer basically has to subscribe to (at minimum)
-devel, -patches, and -changes.
  - any so subscribed developer gets most gnucash-related email in
duplicate: a -changes/-patches pair, with and without the diff.

Goals:
  - I want the user-submitted patches and follow-up discussion to get
a lot of visibility.
  - I'd love to unsubscribe from the commit message syndication and cut
my gnucash-related email in half.

I propose that we make gnucash-patches read-only, i.e. 
  - document that user-submitted code should be sent to -devel
  - allow posts to -patches only from svn commit hook
  - set ReplyTo as gnucash-devel, so any response to a commit-message
goes to -devel
  - gnucash-patches becomes essentially only a syndication of commit
messages, which some people seem to want.

Disclaimer: I have diminishing sympathy for any self-proclaimed
non-developers who might say that they want to remain subscribed to
-devel but don't want user-sumbitted patches crowding their inbox.
  1) It's a really small volume compared to the rest of -devel traffic.
  2) "-devel" stands for development, which for software includes "code".
  3) Reviewing code is *important* and a part of "development" and
appropriate on -devel.
  4) Did I say "tough cookies?"  :)

Comments?

-chris