Shuttleworth (SABDFL) wants to shutdown this ubuntu.user list

[J]

On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 03:04, Nicolas Kovacs <info at microlinux.fr> wrote:
> Le 29/09/2011 02:48, NoOp a écrit :
>>
>> http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/09/20/%23ubuntu-meeting.html#t11:00
>> Shuttleworth states that they should just shut the Ubuntu users list
>> down
>
> I'm an Austrian IT professional living and working in South France. My
> company provides 100% GNU/Linux and FOSS solutions for clients like small
> town halls and public libraries, schools and the likes. I'm mainly working
> with CentOS and Slackware, but recently I've thought of giving Ubuntu a go,
> more exactly 10.04 LTS on servers and Kubuntu 11.04 on desktops.
>
> Communication is vital for me. The docs are quite good (online server
> guide), but a place where I can meet fellow professionals is a vital source
> of information. This mailing list is such a place. So if I understand
> correctly, this means of communication is soon coming to an end. Correct me
> if I'm wrong.
>
> Cheers from the sunny South of France,
>
> Niki Kovacs

To avoid dragging you further into the rabbit hole this discussion has
become, there are no current plans to shut this list down, regardless
of what the conspiracy theorists among us may think.  Has shutting
this list down been discussed? Yes, and incredibly distracting,
lengthy arguments full of vitriol like this one are the reason that
discussion has come up.  Is it happening today, tomorrow or next week?
No.  Next month? Maybe, if the increased amount of off-topic threads
doesn't normalize.  Is this list the only lines of communication?  No.

There are also forums, other mailing lists, Ask Ubuntu, etc:

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community
http://askubuntu.com/

If you want to talk to someone in real time (including many of the
developers of various bits of Ubuntu, there are many #ubuntu-*
channels on Freenode IRC.

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/chat

Since you mentioned this from a professional standpoint, Canonical
sells support (just like Red Hat, Novell and others do) here:

http://www.canonical.com/enterprise-services/ubuntu-advantage

The point is, there are LOTS of communication avenues for Ubuntu.  The
ones I've pointed out are some of the "official" ones, and there are
plenty more in places like Google Groups, Yahoo Groups, and various
other unofficial community forums and lists.

So Communication to get help with problems or answers to your
questions is not a problem.  This list being useful because of the
high signal to noise ratio is a problem.  Personally, I'd prefer to
see this list remain.  I don't use forums or "pull" media if I can
help it.  If I had to use a forum for every interest or avenue of
communication that I needed or wanted, I'd have a bookmark list of
literally hundreds of forums that I'd have to visit individually to
get the information I want.  Mailing lists are more of a "pull" in
that the data comes to me, aggregated by my mail clients (either
Thunderbird or GMail).  So I have only one place I need to post a
message, one place to view replies.

So I'm a huge fan of mailing lists, and I've been on them for years
helping people solve their Linux issues when I can, getting help for
my own questions when I need to.  I do NOT use forums for anything
beyond occasional hobby related interests because I simply don't have
enough time to keep up with forums.

Anyway, I hope that the links above help, and don't worry about this
list being closed down for now... until there's an official
announcement that the decision has been made, everything else is just
hearsay, guesses and a healthy dose of "OMG The people who run these
lists and let me use them for free won't let me do anything I bloody
well please on them! how dare they!!"

Cheers

Jeff