Re: What about an announce-only mailing list?

[Gervase Lam]

> From: Michele Alessandrini
> Subject: What about an announce-only mailing list?
> Date: Saturday 17 April 2004 00:33 am

> Hi,
> I'm a Pingus fan (I already had the occasion to express my apprecation
> for your absolutely wonderful game) and I'm subscribed to the list to be
> informed about new development.
> Anyway, this list brings really too much mail for people not directly
> involved in development. Why not consider the option of a low-traffic
> list with only announce (new releases, new levels, bug fixes, etc)? A
> not repliable one would be even better...

Just in case nobody has replied.

There used to be a while back.  However, the traffic was extremely low.  
At best I think there was only 2 e-mails per year.

As result, Ingo decided to ditch the announce list.  I think this happened 
when Pingus used to be on Savannah.

So, is it worth re-instating an announce list?  New releases of Pingus 
do not happen often.  With the Web level comment tool/database that is 
being developed right now, I think using the announce list for new levels 
would be almost pointless.

The only thing left would be bug fixes.  I suppose that as soon as a patch 
is committed to the source code control system, may be an e-mail should be 
sent to the announce list saying that a patch has been "applied."

Of course, this is only useful if you compile from the source code.  If 
you only want a binary, then you will have to wait for a new release, 
which as I said earlier does not happen often.

Unless you are involved in the development of Pingus (coding, language 
translations, graphics, etc...), I don't think it is likely that you would 
have the source code on your computer.  I could be wrong here.  I don't 
know whether you have the source code or just the binary on your computer.

So, in conclusion, I think people who are on the announce list would most 
likely have the source code on their computers, which means that they are 
most likely to be on the development list.  Any on the announce list who 
just want a binary would probably unsubscribe anyway because announcements 
of new releases only come once in a blue moon.

Thanks,
Gervase.