Moving discussions to GitHub? (Philip Race)

[Sebastian Stenzel]

I am among the younger people here on the mailing lists (at least I think so) and I can very much relate to what Michael suggests. So here is my personal answer to the _why_ question:

Mailing lists create an enormous barrier to external devs like myself who are willing to contribute:
* Signing up to a means of the 80s feels just strange
* Signing up to _any_ additional tool is deterring (same holds true for JBS), especially when you're used to low-threshold contributions to other projects can be
* Therefore, signing up feels like a liability that you may not want to commit to, if you merely want to express your support for a single comment
* It can be hard to find the correct mailing list for the topic you want to discuss
* You'll
   * either receive digests and miss a topic you're interested in
   * or dozens of additional mails each day, alienating people who just want to follow specific discussions
* No proper formatting
* No proper linking to code, issues, PRs, ...
* Hard to track diverging discussions
* Very hard to search - I basically need to use Google and restrict the search to some mail archive
* Linking to different topics means you need to either quote the whole thing or link to an archive

On the other hand I see one important argument against GitHub Discussions: We have no control over how Discussions will change in the future. Even if they seem suitable today, we can't tell if it may be necessary to switch to yet another tool in 5 years. Each time you switch, you strip connections to discussions that took place on the previous platform. Switching tools always comes with a commitment to it and bears this risk.

That said, I agree that this may not be something for OpenJFX to decide for its own. Maybe this discussion belongs on the skara mailing list (did I mention that it's hard to find the right mailing list, a topic belongs to?) Furthermore, changing a process is never easy and will scare people used to the status quo, especially when they've grown familiar with the old process over decades. I've seen this in companies many times. If there is no pressure to change, better tooling is not a strong enough argument to change processes.


> On 20. Aug 2021, at 03:39, openjfx-dev-request at openjdk.java.net wrote:
> 
> From: Philip Race <philip.race at oracle.com <mailto:philip.race at oracle.com>>
> Subject: Re: Moving discussions to GitHub?
> Date: 20. August 2021 at 03:39:04 CEST
> To: Michael Strauß <michaelstrau2 at gmail.com <mailto:michaelstrau2 at gmail.com>>, "openjfx-dev at openjdk.java.net <mailto:openjfx-dev at openjdk.java.net> List" <openjfx-dev at openjdk.java.net <mailto:openjfx-dev at openjdk.java.net>>
> 
> 
> I am not sure that openjfx as an openjdk sponsored project can unilaterally decide this.
> Nor sure that it makes sense either to be different.
> And I've not felt the same disconnection you cite or have any idea why
> this would be better or even match how we work.
> 
> 
> -phil.
> 
> On 8/19/21 5:50 PM, Michael Strauß wrote:
>> With the GitHub Discussions feature now out of beta*, I'd like to
>> start a conversation on whether it could be a good idea for the
>> OpenJFX project to embrace it as the primary place to discuss and
>> interact with the broader community.
>> 
>> While I understand that mailing lists have a long tradition with
>> OpenJDK projects, I feel that they are not a great tool for building
>> and maintaining a community. It's pretty hard to search archived mails
>> and find relevant information or past discussions. Sure, you can do
>> it, but it's not very inviting and accessible.
>> 
>> It also seems to me that the mailing list is very disconnected from
>> the people actually using OpenJFX. Since most people already are on
>> GitHub, and most people interested in OpenJFX will find its GitHub
>> repository, it would also seem to be the most logical place to invite
>> people into the community and join our discussions.
>> 
>> After all, growing and maintaining a community is fundamental for
>> every open-source project to remain relevant.
>> 
>> * https://github.blog/2021-08-17-github-discussions-out-of-beta <https://github.blog/2021-08-17-github-discussions-out-of-beta>