Re: New mailing list?

On 06/20/2014 10:44 AM, Dave Page wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 9:37 AM, Andres Freund <andres@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
>> On 2014-06-20 09:28:46 +0100, Dave Page wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Andres Freund <andres@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
>>>> On 2014-06-20 08:59:52 +0100, Dave Page wrote:
>>>>> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 3:06 AM, Craig Ringer <craig@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
>>>>>> On 06/20/2014 01:12 AM, Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote:
>>>>>>> On 06/19/2014 11:16 AM, Craig Ringer wrote:
>>>>>>>> Hi folks
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'm hoping to apply for a new mailing list hosted on the .org
>>>>>>>> infrastructure, a project list "bdr-users", for the bi-directional
>>>>>>>> replication project.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> hmm why would we need a mailinglist for a specific feature, we dont have
>>>>>>> lists for other features either. So what would be "on topic" on that
>>>>>>> list that does not fit others?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> BDR is on track to be a feature in PostgreSQL core - in 9.5 or 9.6 - and
>>>>>> parts have been merged already.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> However, the patch is ready for real world use now, and requires only
>>>>>> very minimal changes to 9.4 - sufficiently so that it'll shortly have a
>>>>>> script to just convert a 9.4 datadir for use with the BDR patch, or vice
>>>>>> versa.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Given the level of user interest I've been seeing I'd like to have
>>>>>> somewhere for users to communicate about it, discuss it, report issues,
>>>>>> etc, so that we have a much more solid feature for merging into 9.5 and
>>>>>> 9.6. I'm aware of people who intend to put this into production, not
>>>>>> just test with it, so there'll be more than just some chat about it on
>>>>>> -hackers.
>>>>>
>>>>> We've traditionally shied away from having per-feature mailing lists
>>>>> as they end up fragmenting discussion, and typically most of the
>>>>> interested parties are on both lists anyway. In a (very) recent
>>>>> discussion on -core on the topic of having feature lists, it was very
>>>>> clear that it is not something the majority of us want to do.
>>>>
>>>> But it's not really a 'per feature' mailing list. BDR is a PGDG licenced
>>>> extension (including some patches to postgres) that allows to do logical
>>>> replication, including multimaster, today. Using 9.4. I doubt an
>>>> eventual in-core facility will have the same UI, so BDR will continue to
>>>> live for a while independently anyway.
>>>
>>> That seems to be somewhat at odds with Craig's justification - at
>>> least as I read it - where he seems to be saying that the purpose of
>>> the list is to refine the design for inclusion in 9.5/9.6.
>>
>> Yes, we want all the features in core. But given how postgresql
>> development works it neither will be integrated tomorrow nor will it
>> look exactly what we already have right now. So having something ready
>> now is rather worthwile - and that's what we've done.
>>
>> There already have been people asking questions about BDR on -hackers
>> and on -bugs. That's not been, say, welcomed with open arms, since the
>> majority of the audience there won't be interested in that.
>>
>> This list is supposed to be about the usage and bugs in bdr. The design
>> of the in-core facilities should (and will) happen on -hackers just like
>> the logical decoding facilities et al were designed there.
> 
> That certainly makes more sense. We do have other projects with their
> own lists (like pgAdmin of course), so I have no problem with that in
> general. My only concern is that this would be a relatively
> short-lived list.
> 
> Interested to hear what others think...

well I'm skeptic on the general idea of doing short lived lists and I
dont think pgadmin is a good example because it is an entirely seperate
project.
The only references we have that seems close enough to the "long term
project will take years to integrate" thing that bdr-users seems to be
wanted for is more like pgsql-hackers-pitr (seems like thise one was a
failure in terms of uptake/use), pgsql-ports (long running eventually
folded into -hackers) and hackers-win32(fairly active at times).
However all of those were -hacker related lists not user related ones
and I think having bdr-users will confuse people over time ("should I
ask something there or on -general?" or "where to report a bug?") as
features get moved/folded into main postgresql or changed and people are
not sure whether they use a patch-set or the version in upstream.

Could we see what the proposed "description" of that list would be(as in
second column of: http://www.postgresql.org/list/)?


Stefan