Fellow EG members,
I'm going to continue to use this thread to discuss the mailinglist arrangments. It turns out that broken mailinglist archives is a side effect of an ongoing migration of this, and other, EG lists. Please read on (or scroll to the very bottom for the CliffsNotes)
I spoke to Max Lanfranconi yesterday about the JSR-314 mailinglist. Max is one of two admins in the JCP program management office (PMO) office. Max and I discussed two issues:
1. The broken JSR-314-OPEN archives
2. The public mailinglist for community members
As I understand it, Max is aware that the web-based archive for JSR-314-OPEN (at archives.java.sun.com) is not being updated. He assured me that the messages are still being captured, they are just not propagating to the site. The update script was shutdown intentionally when the new jcp.org site went live in June. The reason it was shutdown is because the plan was (is) to deprecate the archive server we are on and move all list archives to jcp.org.
Migrating off of JSR-314-OPEN is imminent, though I don't know exactly how or when. Just know that we are operating on a deprecated list.
So what replaces JSR-314-OPEN then?
To answer that question requires some background first. jcp.org is offering each EG three lists, which are actually forum/listserv hybrids:
> jsr-xxx-eg - A private list for expert group members only.
> jsr-xxx-observers - A semi-private list for expert group members and invited guests. Invitated guests have to be added manually by the PMO admin.
> jsr-xxx-public - An open list for the community. The archives are readable by all (including search engines). E-mail addresses registered with the jcp.org website can post. Authenticated users can also post through the website.
As I understand it, all three lists use the same software. But, for some reason, they function differently. Both the eg and observers lists have 2-way synchronization between the web-based forum and e-mail. However, the public list only lets e-mail in the door. It doesn't send e-mail out. Posts must be read on the forum.
As it turns out, the second of our two requests, to have a read/write community mailiinglist, is nearly answered! There is a community forum here: http://wiki.jcp.org/boards/index.php?b=958. Here's the statement that the PMO issued in their summer newsletter, which aligns very closely with our request.
As you may have noticed, the JCP program office recently completed a
major revision to the jcp.org web site. One of the changes was to
introduce public discussion boards open to any registered user of
jcp.org for each JSR. The forums are tied to mail aliases in the format
of jsr-x-public@jcp.org; note that this board/alias replaces the
jcp-comments aliases. You can find links to the discussion boards on
each JSR page in the format of http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=x (x is
the JSR number). There are also a variety of discussion boards for
general topics here: http://wiki.jcp.org/boards/index.php
But there are three showstoppers:
1. Posts should be sent out via e-mail just like the other two lists. Why the heck not?
2. My attempt to post via jsr-314-public@jcp.org failed
3. jsr-314-comments@jcp.org should be aliased to jsr-314-public@jcp.org
Now back to this question: So what replaces JSR-314-OPEN then?
There are two issues here:
1. What happens to the current archives of JSR-314-OPEN?
2. What list do we use in the future?
Unless there are any objections here, Max has agreed to import all the archives from March 09 until now into the jsr-314-public forum on Monday. This will make them immediately accessible to the public and search engines. We have the option of closing the replies on the threads. I'm not sure what the right answer is there.
We can import the discussions into our list as well. Then, the two lists will continue on their own paths.
That brings us to the second question, what is our list?
We certainly don't need both jsr-314-eg@jcp.org and jsr-314-observers@jcp.org. And since we don't want a exclusively private list, that leaves us with jsr-314-observers@jcp.org. It's not ideal, but we could probably live with PMO manually adding invited members to this list (to post). They claim that we are not restricted in who we choose to invite, so at least the policy is correct.
However, the showstopper for jsr-314-observers@jcp is that the archives are not public for reading.
We can adopt jsr-314-observers@jcp.org as soon as there is a public forum for it on jcp.org. I'd like to get this resolved ASAP so we can get off this list.
That concludes my update. I suspect there will be plenty of discussion to follow. In summary, here are the action items for Max:
1. Posts to jsr-314-public@jcp.org should be sent out via e-mail.
2. Posting via jsr-314-public@jcporg needs to be fixed
3. jsr-314-comments@jcp.org should be aliased to jsr-314-public@jcp.org
4. archives for jsr-314-observers@jcp.org needs to be publically accesable
5. JSR-314-OPEN archives should be imported into jsr-314-observers and jsr-314-public
-Dan
--
Dan Allen
Senior Software Engineer, Red Hat | Author of Seam in Action
Registered Linux User #231597
http://mojavelinux.com
http://mojavelinux.com/seaminaction
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