Hello, I am another long-timer, being one of the earlier contributors to the open source command-line tool, and I would also prefer that the mailing list be kept.
There are advantages and disadvantages to each online communication option. Over the decades, I have noticed that email lists are far more reliable, not to mention easier to deal with. Web-based discussions hosted on particular sites tend to disappear after a while, they have much more intrusive requirements for participation, and are more difficult to passively follow. Effectively, the only way to passively follow GitHub discussions would be to provide an email for notifications, and then it would be a two-step process to see the discussion content. I would much prefer receiving the direct communications via email. I understand the issue with spam on the email list, however I also receive spam from web site based communications. Although LLMs pose a new challenge, it seems that they would be aimed at site-based communications as much as email-based communications. Perhaps I underestimate the challenge because I don't know how much spam is being filtered by my email server that still consumes resources of the list server. Thank you for opening this topic on the mailing list, Brian Willoughby p.s. I have never had an account on Facebook or Google because they require personal information to be stored in their server's account database, where it can be sold or hacked. I realize that the FLAC Developer mailing list also stores some account information in a central place, but the vulnerability is much, much less. On Jun 15, 2025, at 1:36 PM, Federico Miyara wrote: > Dear Martijn, > > I'm one of those longtimers (at least 12 years) and in that period I've read > nearly 2500 messages. If asked I would prefer that the list were kept. I > probably wouldn't subscribe (or, rather, register) to GitHub since I don't > fully agree with the terms and conditions and I haven't a specific need (such > as if I were really involved in a development project). But I understand that > the spam issue may be quite bothersome. > > Best regards, > > Federico Miyara > > > On 15/6/2025 16:15, Martijn van Beurden wrote: >> Hi all, >> >> Until a few years ago, mailing lists were the primary tool for >> communicating on the development FLAC and other Xiph projects. >> However, for FLAC, discussions have moved mostly to GitHub. Other Xiph >> project mailing lists have also mostly fallen silent. Spam is however >> still as much an issue as ever. if not worse with the advent of LLMs. >> Maintenance of those lists is therefore a burden that is increasingly >> disproportional to their use. >> >> So, there is a proposal to close the flac and flac-dev mailing lists. >> For the flac mailing list (for user questions) I'd say that is a done >> deal: nothing of much value happens there anymore. The flac-dev >> mailing list however has quite a few longtimers listening in and >> occasionally replying. This is especially valuable to have different >> perspectives when a new feature or functional changes get proposed. >> I'd like to know whether you would be willing to move over to GitHub >> discussions. GitHub would be the first choice because most discussions >> already happen there anyway. >> >> I'd like to hear some opinions on this matter. >> >> Kind regards, Martijn van Beurden _______________________________________________ flac-dev mailing list -- flac-dev@xiph.org To unsubscribe send an email to flac-dev-le...@xiph.org
