Hi,

networking has always been an important part of building a Linux
distribution, and nowadays in the world of VMs and containers and many different ways to bring up a network this is a constant cause of
friction between packages. the different ways of building firewalls
plays a big role.

otoh, we do not have a general mailing list for network issues. We have debian-ipv6 and debian-firewall, the latter not having had ontopic
traffic since 2022.

Should we have a debian-network mailing list? Or is the networking topic
so important that network issues should be discussed on debian-devel
proper?

Independently of this decision, is it time now to sunset the debian-ipv6
and the debian-firewall mailing list due to the low traffic? Both ipv6
and firewalls are no longer a corner topic inside networking, both
topics have become intrinsic part of networking in Linux.

What do we do?

Greetings
Marc

-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Haber | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header Leimen, Germany | lose things." Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 6224 1600402 Nordisch by Nature | How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 6224 1600421

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Thu, 28 May 2026 09:11, Marc Haber <mh+debian-project@zugschlus.de> wrote: >Hi,

networking has always been an important part of building a Linux >distribution, and nowadays in the world of VMs and containers and many >different ways to bring up a network this is a constant cause of
friction between packages. the different ways of building firewalls
plays a big role.

otoh, we do not have a general mailing list for network issues. We have >debian-ipv6 and debian-firewall, the latter not having had ontopic
traffic since 2022.

Should we have a debian-network mailing list? Or is the networking topic
so important that network issues should be discussed on debian-devel
proper?

Should this only discuss technical decisions, or also provide user
support?

Independently of this decision, is it time now to sunset the
debian-ipv6 and the debian-firewall mailing list due to the low
traffic? Both ipv6 and firewalls are no longer a corner topic inside >networking, both topics have become intrinsic part of networking in
Linux.

Seems sensible to me.
best,
werdahias


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Thu, May 28, 2026 at 12:28:11PM +0200, Matthias Geiger wrote:

On Thu, 28 May 2026 09:11, Marc Haber <mh+debian-project@zugschlus.de> wrote: >>Should we have a debian-network mailing list? Or is the networking

topic so important that network issues should be discussed on
debian-devel proper?

Should this only discuss technical decisions, or also provide user
support?

Discussion amonug technically knowledgeable people and package
maintainers. For example, I'd like to discuss the dependencies of
systemd units of a firewall management suite and network management
tools like s-n or n-m.

Do we have lists beyond *-user-* that provide user support?

Greetings
Marc

-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Haber | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header Leimen, Germany | lose things." Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 6224 1600402 Nordisch by Nature | How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 6224 1600421

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Thu, May 28, 2026 at 01:04:16PM +0200, Marc Haber wrote:

On Thu, May 28, 2026 at 12:28:11PM +0200, Matthias Geiger wrote:

On Thu, 28 May 2026 09:11, Marc Haber <mh+debian-project@zugschlus.de> wrote:

Should we have a debian-network mailing list? Or is the networking
topic so important that network issues should be discussed on debian-devel proper?

Should this only discuss technical decisions, or also provide user
support?

Discussion amonug technically knowledgeable people and package maintainers.

There is such (sub)group in Debian. I'm part of it.

(Insert here the joke "I'm doing secret work, so secret
even I don't know what I' doing" )

The IRC channel is #debian-network there is a wish for a mailinglist.

What the status of the ML is, don't I know by heart.
Probably the agreement on"somebody should do it"
and waiting for someone who is not aware that :-/


Groeten
Geert Stappers
--
Silence is hard to parse

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Thanks for raising this.
On Thu May 28, 2026 at 8:11 AM BST, Marc Haber wrote:

Should we have a debian-network mailing list? Or is the networking
topic so important that network issues should be discussed on
debian-devel proper?

I prefer to see lists (or wikis or IRC channels or...) created to _move_
an existing discussion to, once there's a demonstrated interest. So I
would not object to raising these on -devel. (-devel is pretty quiet
these days!). But I wouldn't object to the new list. I just think the
chance of success is higher with the former approach.

Independently of this decision, is it time now to sunset the
debian-ipv6 and the debian-firewall mailing list due to the low
traffic? Both ipv6 and firewalls are no longer a corner topic inside networking, both topics have become intrinsic part of networking in
Linux.

Sounds sensible to me.

--
???????
??????? Jonathan Dowland
??????? https://jmtd.net
???????


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)