Mailman-Developers May 2021

mailman-developers@python.org

4 participants
5 discussions

before next release: disable backscatter in default installation
by Jo Rhett 07 Nov '22

07 Nov '22

Hi. There's a fairly simple problem here that needs to be addressed. And it's mostly a documentation/install problem. I'm hoping we can get this resolved before the next release. PROBLEM: Mailman comes out of the box ready to backscatter spam people. Yes, it's easy enough to fix. But because it comes stock this way, and is documented to install this way, most people install it to do this. Those of us who work in abuse departments are tired of hearing "well that's how Mailman works". We also object to having to teach people how to fix their mailman installations because it's not documented in the current manual. This is *exactly* like Sendmail 14 years ago. We didn't accept it then, and Sendmail fixed the problem. RESOLUTION: Mailman default installation should not backscatter in a default configuration. 1. Don't create backscatter aliases for subscribe/unsubscribe/etc by default. Nearly everyone uses web based signup. 2. Discard or hold messages from non-subscribers by default. I would think that it would be perfectly reasonable to have documentation on how to enable the 1980s-style -request / -subscribe etc aliases. However this documentation should have a note that this is against the AUP of nearly every network provider, and enabling it will likely cause them to get listed in various blacklists as a backscatter source. FYI: I know that this goes against the instincts of many old-time mailing list advocates here. But after dealing with a 10k/hour backscatter DoS my tolerance for this problem is understandably limited. Yes, it was a sweet day back in the 1980s. I was running a mailing list server and several UUCP gateways at the time, so I remember them well. But those days are past, and we need to deal with the reality of today. -- Jo Rhett Net Consonance : consonant endings by net philanthropy, open source and other randomness

21 168

Core new release?
by Danil Smirnov 06 Jul '21

06 Jul '21

Hi, As per public Gitlab stats for Mailman Core repo, 25 issues have been closed in April so far, which is the record of the last 12 months and beats the previous four months total. From a merge requests perspective, it is the record too, and the merged requests number pace is growing by ~15% over the last four months, reaching a quarter of a hundred in April. I know that it's just a month from the previous Mailman Core release, but given the stats above should the next release be planned earlier than usual? Best regards, Danil Smirnov

3 6

MM3 Freelance developers?
by duane.raymond＠fairsay.com 24 May '21

24 May '21

Hi everyone, I'm look for freelance developer who would like to work on mailman3 improvements. Any suggestions? I want to invest in a range of improvements to the MM3 backend core plus the Postorius and HyperKitty interfaces. But this won't be me ;-) I'd like to work with a freelance developer who works with this community to develop contributions that actually make it into future releases. This would happen over June-August and perhaps beyond. While I could just go out and find a python developer, me first choice would be to work with someone already in the community so I know they are familiar and committed to the platform beyond any paid work I can provide. Anyone you can recommend? Are you interested? Just get in touch :-) Duane PS - if there is a better place to post let me know, but this seems like the place that is most relevent.

3 2

Rough Schedule for GSoC 2021 Community Bonding
by Steven Chen 18 May '21

18 May '21

Hello everyone, I am Quanwen Chen (the student being selected for this year's GSoC). You can call me Steven, and I use `Steven1677` as my username on GitLab. I am really glad to be selected, and my project is the list configuration tool. This tool is aimed at exporting/importing configurations of one list, so to start the project, I will try to figure out the database schema of mail lists first. Then some quick UI prototypes in postorius can be made for getting the basic feeling about the tool. As scheduled in my proposal, I will try to finish these two things in the community bonding period. However, I am taking exams in my university until May 28th. Hence, the work progress in the first two weeks of the community bonding period might be slow. But starting from May 29th, I am able to devote more time on this project. The focus of my working during the bonding period would be 1. figuring out what the tool should be in some kind of detail (make sure I will build the right thing, can use quick UI prototypes to validate) 2. getting more familiar with the database schema to support the coding period work I would like to thank two mentors: Stephen and Abhilash in advance for mentoring my work this summer. Regards, Steven

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Re: [MM3-users] Core, Hyperkitty and Postorius releases
by Abhilash Raj 14 May '21

14 May '21

On Thu, May 13, 2021, at 1:46 PM, Odhiambo Washington wrote: > > > On Wed, Feb 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM Abhilash Raj <maxking(a)asynchronous.in> wrote: >> Hey Everyone, >> >> I am pleased to announce new stable releases for Mailman Core, Postorius, Hyperkitty. >> >> These include both new features and bug fixes. Complete change log for each components: >> >> Mailman Core 3.3.3: https://docs.mailman3.org/projects/mailman/en/latest/src/mailman/docs/NEWS.… >> Postorius 1.3.4 https://docs.mailman3.org/projects/postorius/en/latest/news.html >> Hyperkitty 1.3.4 : https://docs.mailman3.org/projects/hyperkitty/en/latest/news.html >> >> Minimum supported Python version is 3.6. >> >> You can install them using: >> >> $ pip install --upgrade postorius hyperkitty mailman >> >> We have also recently been working on making the installation instructions[1] to be >> more detailed and added a new FAQ[2] section for administrators where I hope >> to capture common questions from mailman-users list. >> >> Feedback or Merge Requests to improve these docs are welcome. You can either >> send an email or open an issue on Gitlab (easier to track) here[3]. >> >> [1]: https://docs.mailman3.org/en/latest/install/virtualenv.html > > > > Hi Abhilash, > > What's the reason behind the exclusion of MySQL & Apache instructions in the installation instructions? :-) Really no reason, the intent was to pick some options in that page and point to additional documentation for using other alternatives. I will be more than happy to accept patches to add the documentation about alternatives like MySQL and Apache and other variations in the tech stack. Just add a new page under install/ and add a "Note" in the above page to point to it. I had documented some time ago how to contribute to our documentation[1] and folks on this list would be happy to answer any questions regarding contribution too. [1]: https://docs.mailman3.org/en/latest/documentation.html -- thanks, Abhilash Raj (maxking)

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Mailman-Developers May 2021