My only reservation with this is that I had hoped for Ayatana work not
to be limited to Ubuntu. It is socially more difficult to engage
upstreams if they feel they will be prejudicing other distributions by
doing so. But on balance, it's probably worth the risk.
Is there anything Ubuntu-specific in Ayatana? If not, then it is only probably a PR issue, and convincing other upstream teams should be possible.
I still feel we should have a list open only to the members of the team
(but publicly accessible - one should be able to listen in and comment
in other media like the -discuss list and web forums).
I actually think this is a good idea. Keep the list open for listening to everybody. When someone *really* has to say something while not being on the list, he/she should be able to easily find the way to do it. It just need to be governed, for example have "open sessions" once in awhile, when anyone can have their voice, or use IRC with moderated channels that get open from time to time for everybody.
Alex.