Re: Potential Launch of Boost Website: Request for Final Feedback

From: Vinnie Falco (vinnie.falco_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-02-16 19:26:11

On Fri, Feb 16, 2024 at 10:33 AM David Sankel via Boost
<boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> As I'm putting together a timeline of related events and
> discussions I have serious reservations.

It isn't obvious how that will be helpful other than finger-pointing
and blame-laying, which in my opinion is counterproductive. Louis
already conveyed that his communications might not have been clear, so
we are willing to concede this point to you. That said, our position
is explained now and the website is almost ready to be published so
for the third time we are asking, how can we make the best of the work
that we have done and figure out a mutually agreeable solution?

> Do we want to hand over control of the Boost mailing
> lists and website to Vinnie? ...I have serious reservations.

"hand over control" sounds exaggerated. The counter-proposal,
described in a previous message and repeated here is that The Boost
Foundation retains control of the boost.org domain and points the DNS
record to our servers running the new website. If at any time you
don't like it, then simply point it back to the old server containing
the old site, which you control. It is a reasonable system. The people
who did the work and paid the costs will execute on their vision
explained here:

https://cppalliance.org/boost/2023/05/09/New-Website.html
https://cppalliance.org/boost/2023/05/08/Future-of-Boost.html

Meanwhile the Boost Foundation gets a veto through control of the
domain. We hope before any veto actions, that the mailing list is
consulted first, as we consulted the list repeatedly to better adapt
to the needs of the Boost community.

A reasonable question to ask would be, what would it be like where The
C++ Alliance maintains and administers the website? Can Vinnie be
trusted? Well, I had full access to the Boost X (formerly Twitter)
account for almost a year, via the now-discontinued TweetDeck service.
During that time I was responsible for 80% of all the posts made to
the account. Many of them had images commissioned by our artist, which
we paid for. We are happy to do it, as tweets with images get triple
the engagement. I asked for permission before every post. Now we have
80% less tweets, because losing access to TweetDeck has sent the
message that I can't be trusted. This doesn't feel good and since I am
not being paid to contribute to Boost (quite the opposite) I am not
particularly motivated to keep tweeting.

Another reasonable question to ask would be, what is it like to
request services and maintenance from The C++ Alliance? We don't need
to guess. Samuel Darwin has been helping the release managers by
updating and maintaining the release scripts, administering the
infrastructure, and generally providing a continuation of the services
that were formerly provided by Ciere Consulting. We also added Drone
CI pull requests to all repositories, and provided GitHub Actions
scripting support. Sam also provided ongoing consultation and support
directly to the Boost Foundation for IT tasks. We note that The Boost
Foundation has just today revoked credentials that Sam had access to
for the boost.org DNS account. Why?

I ask again, how can we come to a mutually agreeable solution?

Thanks