[coreboot] [RFC] Mailing list and IRC split

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

Hi,

AFAICS the time has come to give flashrom its own mailing list (maybe
flashrom at coreboot.org) and IRC channel (irc.freenode.net/#flashrom).

I do realize this has been brought up in the past, but while I was
sceptical back then, I realized that the times have changed in the last
few months.
The release of flashrom 0.9.0 has increased both visiblity and user
base, resulting in a sizable portion of list and chat traffic to be
related to flashrom.

Some of us are only interested in coreboot, while others are only
interested in flashrom. Since filtering mails according to subject can
introduce lots of errors, having two separate lists would make watching
one one of flashrom/coreboot easier.

List traffic over the last few years:
2007:  29 mails/day
2008:  41 mails/day
2009:  36 mails/day

Although the list traffic has not yet reached linux-kernel levels, it is
already too much to read in full. I hope splitting the lists will allow
people to concentrate on their personal area of interest and also
encourage more reviews. After all, if you have to read less mails, you
can respond to more of them.

One issue to solve is how we want to handle flashrom success/failure
reports sent to flashrom at coreboot.org. Right now they end up on an
unmoderated private list. After the change, they'd get a message that
the list is moderated. This might discourage users, so we have to think
of a nice moderation message, possibly mentioning that emergency help
for broken flash is available on IRC.

The suggested way forward is outlined below:
1. Register #flashrom on irc.freenode.net (done)
2. Invite parties interested in flashrom to join #flashrom besides
#coreboot.
3. Pre-Announce the mailing list split with the following text:
"coreboot at coreboot.org will be split in two lists. flashrom at coreboot.org
is where flashrom development and usage will be discussed.
coreboot at coreboot.org will carry all traffic not related to flashrom.
coreboot at coreboot.org list members will be subscribed automatically to
flashrom at coreboot.org. If you are only interested in either coreboot or
flashrom, feel free to unsubscribe from either list once the split is done."
4. Wait a week for protests etc.
5. Create a new mailing list flashrom at coreboot.org with the same
subscribers as coreboot at coreboot.org.
6. Announce the mailing list split with the following text:
"coreboot at coreboot.org has been split in two lists.
flashrom at coreboot.org is where flashrom development and usage are
discussed from now own. coreboot at coreboot.org carries all traffic not
related to flashrom. coreboot at coreboot.org list members have been
subscribed automatically to flashrom at coreboot.org. If you are only
interested in either coreboot or flashrom, feel free to unsubscribe from
either list."

Thoughts? Flames?

Regards,
Carl-Daniel