[cobalt-security] Clearing up some things about the lists

[Bruce Timberlake <bruce@xxxxxxxxxx>]

My name's been tossed around a lot lately, so I want to state my position once 
and for all so everyone gets the same message at the same time.

First, I'm sure Craig would love nothing more than to be blessed (and paid) by 
Sun to continue the cobalt-* lists as they stand today. Comments to the 
contrary of his stated intention to shut down list.cobalt.com and wash his 
hands of the hassle should be directed at someone above him (I don't know who 
though).

Honestly, he's got no say in the matter. He could have just chosen to ignore 
the server, and in 3 days when it dies again, we'll be in the dark. At least 
this way we know what's coming and when, and we can take some proactive 
action.  Frankly, I think it's good that action is finally being "forced"... 
yes, I'd love it if Sun woke up, realized what an awesome thing they had at 
one time for their $2 billion, and cranked up the Cobalt machine again. But 
it just ain't gonna happen, so we need to move on.

Due to the 'warring' factions on the various lists, I have been approached by 
several individuals who would like the follow-on list(s) to cobalt-* remain 
"independent", and I've been selected by most as the lucky unbiased 
all-knowing former cobalt-* list owner that most would like to have "in 
charge" of whatever format the cobalt-* follow-on list(s) take... :)

There seems to be two separate discussions happening - how to preserve the 
content of the cobalt-* lists, and where people should post/join to have a 
similar forum after May 14th.

I think today a bunch of people have pounded list.cobalt.com into submission 
by grabbing the archive mbox files for the cobalt-* lists, with the intent of 
posting the content online. I think this is great, and the more people that 
want to mirror the content online somehow, fine.

I am happy to be the "figurehead" of whatever follow-on list(s) get built by 
whomever, if that's what [any|every]one wants. There's been so much angst 
brewing among many list members over who/what is advertising too much, who is 
a spammer, who doesn't like another person, etc. Frankly I couldn't care less 
about all that. People are going to have disagreements no matter what anyone 
says or does. As long as the content stays mostly meaningful I'm happy... 
KMail makes it so easy to filter out flame threads I have no interest in! :)

FWIW, I personally plan to continue monitoring/posting to the cobaltfacts list 
for now. It's been "up" the longest of all the 'parallel' lists, and most of 
the cobalt-* regulars are, and have been, posting on cobaltfacts for quite 
some time. I think that, at least for the immediate future, cobaltfacts is 
where everyone should sign on for their Cobalt email list fix.  

I will gladly contribute time/effort/whatever to munging the cobalt-* archives 
to become a seamless part of the cobaltfacts/qbalt/fubar-whatever lists, if 
anyone wants to tackle that.

What I'd really love to see is a compilation of content from the cobalt-* 
lists into more HOWTOs and knowledgebase-type formats... Searching a mailing 
list can be useful if someone actually got the solution to the problem down 
in one email. But following a thread can be painful...

There's enough knowledge on here that if everyone picked out 3 or 4 of their 
pet peeves/things they figured out that nobody else did/etc, we could have an 
amazing CBK (common body of knowledge) to build from.  I'm thinking of 
setting up a wiki page over at www.cobaltfaqs.com that anyone can add their 
requests to for HOWTOs. Then interested folks can troll the lists, compile a 
HOWTO for each request, and post it online someplace...  (where/how/who 
double-checks/etc is obviously TBD).

What would be nice/helpful is if we can all agree on at least the stop-gap 
measure of using cobaltfacts. Then we could nicely ask Craig to do a one-time 
direct email to all cobalt-* members about the impending shutdown of cobalt-* 
and include a link to cobaltfacts.  Even nicer would be to get every cobalt-* 
subscriber email address and I would send them an email directly with the 
cobaltfacts sign-up link and/or just auto sign them up for cobaltfacts... I'm 
not sure how that last option would be looked on by the anti-spam community; 
it definitely reeks of no-opting-in...

So, to sum it up, I am "on" the cobaltfacts list now, and will continue to do 
so after May 14. If you are mirroring the cobalt-* lists content, add your 
website to the CobaltFacts webring so others know where to look.

-- Bruce