changes for this mailing list

Hello everyone,

as part of our membership process, we also would like to give @libreoffice.org e-mail forwarders to our approved members. Thanks to the folks from Heinlein Support in Berlin, who offered to take care of the mail forwarding and to program a web tool to enable users to configure the forwarding!

In order to be able to use two different mail servers -- one for mailing lists, and one for the mail forwarders -- we have to change the addresses of a few mailing lists.

In a nutshell: All lists currently known as @libreoffice.org will in the future be known as @global.libreoffice.org

In detail:

accessibility@libreoffice.org => accessibility@global.libreoffice.org

design@libreoffice.org => design@global.libreoffice.org

documentation@libreoffice.org => documentation@global.libreoffice.org

l10n@libreoffice.org => l10n@global.libreoffice.org

marketing@libreoffice.org => marketing@global.libreoffice.org

projects@libreoffice.org => projects@global.libreoffice.org

users@libreoffice.org => users@global.libreoffice.org

website@libreoffice.org => website@global.libreoffice.org

You do *not* have to un- or resubscribe from any lists, as the list of all recipients will be automatically transferred to the new addresses. The subject prefix, like [libreoffice-website], will also stay the *same*. What *will* change is the address you have to send e-mails to, and the headers like List-Post and List-ID. So, in case you filter your e-mails based on the headers, you *do* need to act. This is most likely the case if you use a local mail client like Thunderbird. Webmail services like Google Mail usually do *not* make use of these headers.

The change will be effective during the day of

  Thursday, June 9th

I will send a follow-up e-mail when the addresses have changed. Immediately after that, assume the old addresses will stop working. I will try to set them as aliases for a few days, but I cannot guarantee it will work out.

However, *no* e-mail will be lost -- in case there is no alias in place, you will receive a bounce message and can re-send the mail again.

Sorry for these inconveniences, but they will help us in providing e-mail forwarders for our members.

In case of questions, feel free to ask me directly, or on the website@ mailing list.

Florian

I don't expect this will change, but I find the reasoning that appears to be behind it rather interesting.

So, let me see if I understand this. So that you and other TDF Members can now have libreoffice.org e-mail addresses (which will be forwarded to whatever actual e-mail services hold and deliver mail as each individual member arranges) like floeff@libreoffice.org, all the rest of us have to learn how to send mail to mailing-list-name@global.libreoffice.org when we have struggled already to learn how to work with list mailing-list-name@libreoffice.org, mailing-list-name+help@libreoffice.org, etc.

And this irreversible change may or may not be disruptive in unexpected ways, but you'll do your best because it is being done by throwing a switch on the universe and Mother Nature can be petulant about such things (not to mention the opportunity it affords for Puck, Kokopelli, and Loki to have a little fun with the foolish humans).

So does this mean that the archives will also change their URLs and any linking we have done to existing list posts will be broken? (I mention this as one place where the law of unintended consequences may step in. Will all of the threads be broken too?) Of course, there is already archive.libreoffice.org for those. Do they stay that way?

Additional curiosities. Is there some system that has global.libreoffice.org be preferable to lists.libreoffice.org ? Or is this some limitation of how Heinlein Support is working their magic? Maybe what you really want is honorifics, so you can be floeff@founders.libreoffice.org or floeff@members.libreoffice.org and floeff@staff.libreoffice.org (you can go crazy with this, though I recommend against floeff@supremeleader.libreoffice.org ) since you're going to have to redo your stationery and business cards anyhow?

Now, I do like affinity forwardings. After all, I get to be dennis.hamilton@acm.org (a forwarding) and also orcmid@sourceforge.net and even orcmid@google.com (set up as a forwarding too) and, once upon a time, orcmid@computer.org. I may even have Facebook and Linked-in affinities, though I haven't bothered to check. I am just looking at the system-engineering aspects of this mid-course correction and how it appears to disrupt the many for the benefit of a few. Odd, that, considering what it is we are out to accomplish and promote and who we say we are?

Playfully,

- Dennis

PS: I do happen to filter on what appears in the "To" of incoming mail. But it is relatively easy to change those rules since I also use a white-list spam system and the new "To" and perhaps "from" e-mail addresses will go to spam until I do something about them.

Hi :slight_smile:

This has been discussed 'ad nauseum' on the website list and probably other
places although i think it was some time ago and 'shelved' as being too
low-priority at the time. I haven't checked in with the website list for many
months but i would hazard a guess that they have been discussing this quite a
lot recently too.

Some things had to be set-up fast with the best foresight available at the
time. Since then much has changed and grown. Hindsight is fantastic, if only
we could have it much much earlier!! Any links that don't work may need a tiny
bit of editing but i suspect that the 'global' bit in the middle wont appear on
old threads.

Part of the problem with Windows systems is that they religiously attempt to
stick with legacy systems that really need to be thrown out, for example the
registry. As a result they have to put a lot of work into propping up systems
that are vulnerable and in constant danger of falling over. Oddly, they also
help make Windows unable to run on older hardware because of the immense size of
all that legacy bloat. By contrast Linux and OpenSource systems are not afraid
to throw something out when it becomes a burden and as a curious result there
are a lot of linux distros that run superbly fast on machines that haunt peoples
attics or contribute to landfill.

It's better to make this change now than wait until the community and supporting
websites has doubled in size again.

Also Florian is not some supreme master. He is another volunteer who has
bravely accepted the job of informing people about things decided by committees
that he may not even have attended personally. A thankless task at best!

However, re-reading your post again i see that it is probably meant as a
humorous and actually very funny gentle-dig-in-the-ribs rather than the attack i
first thought it. I guess i am just a 'bit tense' right now as it's the end of
a wearying but fun day at the office :wink:
Good luck and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hello,

This has been discussed 'ad nauseum' on the website list and probably
other places although i think it was some time ago and 'shelved' as
being too low-priority at the time. I haven't checked in with the
website list for many months but i would hazard a guess that they have
been discussing this quite a lot recently too.

there has been a public discussion about that mail addresses on the steering discuss list, as well as during the calls. After we received lots of inquiries from the Community -- so it is *not* about addresses for the founders or the steering committee -- we agreed on handing out these forwarders for members of TDF.

It is a slight change for those writing to the lists, but we're trying to make the process as easy as possible.

lists.libreoffice.org is not possible for technical reasons, as some internal lists and archives are hosted at this address.

Florian