+0 1-One side of me says that we have better things to worry about 2-The other side tells me that this thread is actually tough to follow and the headers are all over the place…who replied to who ? 3-The top side of me says we should do like other ASF projects...
On Feb 8, 2013, at 8:54 AM, Hugo Trippaers <htrippa...@schubergphilis.com> wrote: > +1 (binding) > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Alex Huang [mailto:alex.hu...@citrix.com] >> Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 5:22 AM >> To: Sheng Yang; Chip Childers; Brett Porter; Animesh Chaturvedi; David >> Nalley; Edison Su; run...@gmail.com; dk...@apache.org; Hugo Trippaers; >> shadow...@gmail.com; somikbeh...@vmware.com; Frank Zhang; >> w...@widodh.nl >> Cc: cloudstack-dev@incubator.apache.org >> Subject: RE: [VOTE] Revert back to old mailing list mechanism, which would >> add "Reply-To: mailing list" to every mail it send out >> >> I'm okay either way. The only reason why I raised the issue was because I >> believe the original discussion did not conclude with it's ok to strip the >> reply- >> to header. >> >> --Alex >> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: Sheng Yang [mailto:sh...@yasker.org] >>> Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2013 4:01 PM >>> To: Chip Childers; Alex Huang; Brett Porter; Animesh Chaturvedi; David >>> Nalley; Edison Su; run...@gmail.com; dk...@apache.org; >>> htrippa...@schubergphilis.com; shadow...@gmail.com; >>> somikbeh...@vmware.com; Frank Zhang; w...@widodh.nl >>> Cc: cloudstack-dev@incubator.apache.org >>> Subject: [VOTE] Revert back to old mailing list mechanism, which would >>> add >>> "Reply-To: mailing list" to every mail it send out >>> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> I'd like to call for a vote for reverting back to the old mailing list >>> mechanism, which would add "Reply-To: mailing list" to every mail it >>> send out. >>> >>> And I need to declare that I would vote *-1* on this revert. >>> >>> Whatever you voted in the previous mail, I suggested to read the whole >>> mail before vote. >>> >>> Here are some backgrounds: >>> >>> 1. What's "Reply-To" header >>> >>> Defined by IETF RFC 5322(the latest version of "Internet Message >>> Format")[1], 3.6.2 Originator Fields: >>> >>> <quote> >>> When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it >>> indicates the address(es) to which the author of the message suggests >>> that replies be sent. >>> </quote> >>> >>> Which means, this option would override the default behavior of >>> replying mail, to send out mail to the specified mailing address >>> (mailing list address in this case) rather than original author of the >>> mail. >>> >>> 2. What's the old mailing list mechanism >>> >>> Long ago, many people familiar with other mailing list like LKML or >>> libvirt realized there is no way to use reply all to the author and >>> this mailing list as we did before on this mailing list. The mail only >>> goes for the mailing list address, not for the author. That's because >>> in the past, this mailing list(cloudstack-dev) added "Reply-To" field >>> to all the mail it sent out, which would override the original author >>> field when others reply the mail. So something like this would happen: >>> >>> Event: A wrote mail X, send to mailing list. >>> Result: X reached other subscribers of mailing list, with "From: A" >>> and "Reply-To: M" (mailing list). >>> Event: B replied the mail X. >>> Result: X reached other subscribers of mailing list, with "From: B" >>> and "Reply-To: M". There is no A mentioned in this mail's header. A >>> would have to check the mail from mailing list to know B replied. >>> >>> 3. What's the new mailing list mechanism(which is happening now). >>> >>> The "Reply-To" has been discard. So every mail come along would go >>> back to it's author as well as the mailing list. >>> >>> Event: A wrote mail X, send to mailing list. >>> Result: X reached other subscribers of mailing list, with "From: A" and "CC: >>> M". >>> Event: B replied the mail X. >>> Result: X reached other subscribers of mailing list, as well as A's >>> mail box directly, with "From: B" and "To/CC: A, M". A would see that >>> in his inbox directly. >>> >>> 4. What's the pro/con of the old approach(I won't vote for this, so >>> you know this may be bias). : >>> >>> Pros: >>> a. Enforcement: It would enforce every communication happened in the >>> mailing list. >>> b. Fix the broken mail client: You don't need to have a mail client >>> support "Reply-to-all" for involving the mailing list. >>> >>> Cons: >>> a. Violate RFC 5322. RFC 5322 said clearly that ONLY "author" can >>> suggest to use "Reply-To" for an alternative address of receiving the >>> reply. Mailing list server is NOT the author of the mail. >>> b. Inefficient: Everyone would setup a filter for mailing list would >>> need to dig the mailing list from time to time to see if there is a >>> response. >>> >>> And here is an very old article on explaining why "Reply-To" is bad >>> thing to do[2]. You can read if you're interested in. >>> >>> 5. What's pro/cons of the new approach: >>> >>> Pros: >>> a. Efficient: Author would receive the mail addressed to his mailbox, >>> so he would know that's a reply(from the mailing list) immedately. >>> b. Consistent: When you in the thread for multiple people, you won't >>> expect "Reply" single would reach all the people. That's why most >>> people always use "Reply-to-All" by default in their daily life. >>> c. Keep people in thread. Even if you're at a long weekend and don't >>> like to be bothered by mailing list but someone replied you on one >>> month old thread, you would know immediately. >>> d. More involving: People don't need to subscribe to the mailing list >>> to involve. Like Wido pointed out, most mailing list is doing this >>> because they encourage the anticipating, even temporarily. You don't >>> need to subscribe to the mailing list to involve in the community, but >>> you still can choose to do so if you think it's good enough for >>> subscribing. >>> >>> Cons: >>> New comer's mistake: It happened when one just begin the community >>> life. Someday he hit "Reply" rather than "Reply-to-all" by mistake. >>> Then mail didn't go to the mailing list. >>> >>> 6. My opinion: >>> >>> a. Inefficient is unacceptable. I don't want to spend any unnecessary >>> time to look through all the mails to find out what's my interested >>> in, especially when I am in a tiger team and had worked for more than >>> 12 hours a day. >>> >>> b. Man made mistakes, but they learned quickly after that. I've >>> learned that as well. In fact I suppose most people would use >>> "Reply-to-All" in the company or daily life, so I don't think it's >>> hard. Anyway, I set "Reply-to-All" by default in all my mail clients, >>> and I expected most of us have done the same. >>> >>> c. Some people said it would encourage offline discussion. I distaste >>> this thought most. It seems you shouldn't been given freedom to choose >>> because we didn't trust you can do the right thing. But it's the trust >>> which build the community, and it's the freedom all Open Source/Free >>> Software about. "Free as in freedom". Yes, this approach just make it >>> easier for people to discuss offline, but does it matter? If you don't >>> trust the people would able to do the right thing, I am afraid even if >>> you tried every method you have to enforce it, they won't help a bit. >>> Community is about people, not about the mailing list. Offline discuss >>> can always happen if people want. Community is an spontaneously >>> organization, not an prison, or Soviet Union. People have right to >>> choose. If you cannot believe they would do the right thing if you >>> give them choice, then this open source community is already done. The >>> Linux kernel mailing list or xen-devel or kvm-devel or libvirt or many >>> other famous mailing list, do it in this way, and none of them hurts >>> because of "encouraging offline discussion". >>> >>> I vote -1 on this change. >>> >>> [1]http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322 >>> [2]http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html >>> >>> --Sheng
