Bug report: Take bug reporting off the mailing list

[Eyal Rozenberg]

Hello TeXLive maintainers,

I claim that having bug reports go through the main / a main mailing
list of the project's is, well, a bug. Why?

1. It conflates aspects of the project which some (many) would like to
consider separately. If there were different mechanisms to conduct
discussions, read announcements, and follow bugs - some people would
choose to utilize all of them, and some only part of them

2. It discourages people from following events relating to their own
bug. In order to follow it, you must accept all mails about the project.
I don't know how frequent those are, but - new and potential subscribers
would generally not know, and as they begin to receive messages not
related to their bugs, are likely to unsubscribe from the list, and miss
posts related to them.

3. It discourages people from filing bugs. This is more of a
psychological argument, but - joining a project's mailing list implies
significant interest in the project, somewhat of a commitment to it -
while all a user may want to do is be a "good Samaritan" and report
something. Some of us might just give it up so as not to subscribe,
report and unsubscribe - which feels like a bit of an abuse of the
mailing list mechanism.

So, I would ask that you consider using a different bug tracking system.
There are many popular FOSS web-based systems that do not require
changes in other aspects of how your project is run, and can also send
out emails which might be able to replace mail-based triggering you
might currently be using.

This would also have the benefit of letting people pick-and-choose which
bugs they want to follow.

Respetfully,
Eyal Rozenberg