GNU Mailman roadmap

[Barry Warsaw]

As you know, Mailman 2.1 has long been in maintenance-only mode.  
Mailman 2.2 was where we were going to add new features and update the  
user interface, without changing the basic model.  Mailman 3 was where  
we were going to fix the model and modernize the architecture to allow  
for better embedded use.  Mark has been doing an incredible job fixing  
Mailman 2.1, and forward porting these fixes to Mailman 2.2.  I have  
been working on Mailman 3 and have released several alphas.

The current state of affairs is not ideal though.  Neither 2.2 nor 3.0  
has been released, there is confusion in the community as to which  
version to develop patches for, and frustration on our part that we  
have divided efforts and not as much community participation as we'd  
like.

Mark and I have decided therefore to combine our efforts under Mailman  
3, and we invite you to join us.  Working together, I feel confident  
that we can have a solid release of Mailman 3 very soon, hopefully by  
the end of the year.  Patrick Koetter and his group have expressed  
interest and resources in helping jump start the new Mailman user  
interface, which will be built on top of Mailman 3's REST interface.  
What do /you/ want to work on? :)

Here's the plan: Mark is going to put a 2.1.13 bug fix release out  
soon and will continue to fix only the most important bugs on the 2.1  
branch.  He'll forward port those fixes to the 2.2 branch for the few  
people who are running it from source, but there will never be a  
Mailman 2.2 release.  For all practical purposes, Mailman 2.2 is  
dead.  Mark will be joining me to focus all new development work on  
Mailman 3.0.

I hope this brings clarity to where we're going, and I hope that the  
renewed and concentrated efforts will encourage you to pull down the  
Mailman 3.0 code or alphas and begin testing and developing for it.

Enjoy,
-Barry



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[Brian J Mingus]

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 7:52 PM, Barry Warsaw <barry@...> wrote:

> As you know, Mailman 2.1 has long been in maintenance-only mode.  Mailman
> 2.2 was where we were going to add new features and update the user
> interface, without changing the basic model.  Mailman 3 was where we were
> going to fix the model and modernize the architecture to allow for better
> embedded use.  Mark has been doing an incredible job fixing Mailman 2.1, and
> forward porting these fixes to Mailman 2.2.  I have been working on Mailman
> 3 and have released several alphas.
>
> The current state of affairs is not ideal though.  Neither 2.2 nor 3.0 has
> been released, there is confusion in the community as to which version to
> develop patches for, and frustration on our part that we have divided
> efforts and not as much community participation as we'd like.
>
> Mark and I have decided therefore to combine our efforts under Mailman 3,
> and we invite you to join us.  Working together, I feel confident that we
> can have a solid release of Mailman 3 very soon, hopefully by the end of the
> year.  Patrick Koetter and his group have expressed interest and resources
> in helping jump start the new Mailman user interface, which will be built on
> top of Mailman 3's REST interface.  What do /you/ want to work on? :)
>
> Here's the plan: Mark is going to put a 2.1.13 bug fix release out soon and
> will continue to fix only the most important bugs on the 2.1 branch.  He'll
> forward port those fixes to the 2.2 branch for the few people who are
> running it from source, but there will never be a Mailman 2.2 release.  For
> all practical purposes, Mailman 2.2 is dead.  Mark will be joining me to
> focus all new development work on Mailman 3.0.
>
> I hope this brings clarity to where we're going, and I hope that the
> renewed and concentrated efforts will encourage you to pull down the Mailman
> 3.0 code or alphas and begin testing and developing for it.
>
> Enjoy,
> -Barry

Perhaps the failure of the mailman dev team to attract community
participation can be related not to any crazy versioning scheme but rather
to a failure to engage with the community. I have only recently subscribed
to this list and I can say that you and every other person that read my
e-mail saw fit to ignore it. Your null hypothesis, namely that people who
send questions and not patches to the list are not worth your time, costs
you dearly in the long run.

/Brian
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[Barry Warsaw]

On Nov 1, 2009, at 11:59 PM, Brian J Mingus wrote:

> Perhaps the failure of the mailman dev team to attract community
> participation can be related not to any crazy versioning scheme but  
> rather
> to a failure to engage with the community. I have only recently  
> subscribed
> to this list and I can say that you and every other person that read  
> my
> e-mail saw fit to ignore it. Your null hypothesis, namely that  
> people who
> send questions and not patches to the list are not worth your time,  
> costs
> you dearly in the long run.

Hi Brian,

I'm sorry, but I don't remember seeing your message on the list.  For  
any misunderstandings like this, I take full blame and  
responsibility.  I can say that I value all contributions from the  
community, whether it be in the form of questions, patches,  
complaints, kudos, or stacks of dollar bills. :)

I think the mailman-developers list is fairly typical for an open  
source project.  I invite you to repost your message and this time  
I'll keep an eye out for it.

-Barry



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[Mark Sapiro-3]

Brian J Mingus wrote:
>
>Perhaps the failure of the mailman dev team to attract community
>participation can be related not to any crazy versioning scheme but rather
>to a failure to engage with the community. I have only recently subscribed
>to this list


You are subscribed to mailman-users, not mailman-developers.


>and I can say that you and every other person that read my
>e-mail saw fit to ignore it.


Not true. There have been extreme moderation delays recently and your
post was only delivered to the mailman-users list on Sunday and it has
not been ignored.

I apologize for the moderation delay. We have added more resources to
the task which we hope will help.


>Your null hypothesis, namely that people who
>send questions and not patches to the list are not worth your time, costs
>you dearly in the long run.


If you read the archives of the mailman-users and mailman-developers
lists, I think you'll find that the above statement is unjustified.

Further, during the moderation delay, I had an irc conversation on
#mailman with someone about the subject of your original mailman-users
post. Was that you? Does that seem like I think your issue is not
worth my time?

--
Mark Sapiro <mark@...>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan

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[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Brian J Mingus writes:
 > I have only recently subscribed to this list and I can say that you
 > and every other person that read my e-mail saw fit to ignore
 > it.

I don't see anything in my folder or in the archives for this list
(Mailman Developers).  Perhaps you are referring to your post
"E-mail-based moderation" to Mailman Users?  If so, it would seem that
you have "seen fit to ignore" the replies you've already received:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2009-November/067633.html
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2009-November/067646.html

It's quite reasonable for the developers to see replies from users
known to usually give good advice and assume the matter is settled, at
least until there's a followup.  It's not so reasonable for you to
assume that things regularly get dropped on the floor when you
discover that one similar message to a different list went unanswered
18 months ago, especially when you could just eyeball a few months'
worth of "thread view" in the archives and see it's simply not true.

 > Your null hypothesis, namely that people who send questions and not
 > patches to the list are not worth your time, costs you dearly in
 > the long run.

In fact the developers are quite good about replying on this list, and
some of the developers are usually available on the Mailman Users
list[1], as well as between 5 and 20 experienced users who are able to
answer most questions posed there.  It's true that the OPs don't
always consider the replies to be responsive to their needs, but then
I gather the developers' and FAQ meisters' salaries are several
million dollars in arrears....

While it's the obvious/traditional thing to do, making a request for
enhancement on a mailing list is no longer the most effective way to
get action.  Better would be to submit a "wishlist" bug at

https://bugs.launchpad.net/mailman/

because that won't get lost, or accidentally flushed from an INBOX if
overlooked for 48 hours.[2]  Wishlist bugs probably don't do as well as
average, but the details page (append "+bugs" to the above URL) shows
643 open bugs out of 1820, so about 2/3 of the reported bugs have been
addressed.  Many of the bugs labelled "new" have comments from
developers, and some are waiting on further input (sometimes for years
:-) from the reporter.


Footnotes:
[1]  I personally wish Mark would cut his FAQ-answering time by about
80%; there are plenty of experienced users who can do the job well enough.

[2]  I think you have to go through a mildly annoying registration
process to submit a bug or feature request, but you only have to do it
once.


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[Mark Sapiro-3]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

>[1]  I personally wish Mark would cut his FAQ-answering time by about
>80%; there are plenty of experienced users who can do the job well enough.


Of course you are right, but there is a reason my nickname on the
acknowledgements page is "Mailman's compulsive responder". I also have
a motto (not completely joking) "OCD is a terrible thing to waste".

--
Mark Sapiro <mark@...>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan

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