[ovs-discuss] options for OVN mailing lists, with a survey

Alin Serdean aserdean at cloudbasesolutions.com
Wed Jun 10 20:46:03 UTC 2020


From: Ben Pfaff<mailto:blp at ovn.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2020 8:01 PM
To: discuss at openvswitch.org<mailto:discuss at openvswitch.org>
Subject: [ovs-discuss] options for OVN mailing lists, with a survey

Hi!

TL;DR: please answer the simple question at the end of the email.

Since Open vSwitch and OVN are now separate projects, it would be a good
idea to separate their mailing lists as well.  This is easier said than
done for at least two reasons:

        * Mailing lists are troublesome to manage these days.  There are
          few service providers that are willing to do the job.  Even
          Linux Foundation just subcontracts them.  The current OVS
          lists are grandparented in but LF is not willing to add more
          lists under the same terms.

        * OVN and Open vSwitch have given out email addresses to
          individual contributors at ovn.org and Linux Foundation has
          only given half-hearted assurances that they can do this.

We are now considering our options.  One factor is the different ways
that a mailing list can be run.  There are three major categories:

        * "Open": anyone may post to the list regardless of whether they
          subscribe (although spam gets dropped to some degree of
          accuracy) and it will be delivered immediately.

          This is how ovs-dev is configured.  We have to configure it
          that way because ovs-dev gets CCed from linux-kernel and
          netdev on a regular basis and that community expects mailing
          lists to be open and will yell at us if they are not.

        * "Moderated": anyone may post to the list, but if they are not
          subscribed to it then it is diverted to a moderation queue.  A
          moderator then glances at it to make sure it isn't spam, and
          if it isn't, directs it to the list.  ALSO: the moderator
          generally adds the sender email address to the list of allowed
          sender addresses.  Thus, the FIRST email from a given sender
          is delayed, but not subsequent ones.

          This is how the rest of the OVS mailing lists are configured.
          Justin and I are the current moderators.  I probably spend
          only a minute or two a day on it, it's easy work.

          I do not know of any commercial service providers that support
          this configuration.

        - "Closed": only subscribers may post.  Others' emails are
          rejected.  OVS doesn't configure lists this way.

          Commercial service providers, including LF's, do support this
          configuration.

If it is acceptable for OVN mailing lists to be closed, then we could do
something relatively easy:

        * Continue to manage ovn.org email addresses for individuals in
          our current way, which works.

        * Create a new lists.ovn.org MX host and turn it over to LF's
          service provider to implement closed OVN mailing lists.

Question: would it be acceptable for OVN mailing lists to be closed, so
that emails from non-subscribers are rejected?  (See the definition of
"closed" above.)

Thanks,

Ben.
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[Alin Serdean] I think it is acceptable as long as anyone can subscribe.
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