At 3:09 PM -0700 2005-04-29, Jeff Marshall wrote:
Feedback?
Speaking as the listmaster for ntp.isc.org (and ntp.org, back before all those lists got moved), I can say that I would not be opposed to this patch, if you would be willing to guarantee that you would not archive or mirror any mailing lists except through this sort of mechanism, and that adequate protections were built into the system.
I ran into a problem where gmane was archiving some of our mailing lists (going back quite some time), and we didn't discover this fact until much, much later. Lars was nice enough to comply with our request to remove our lists from gmane, but these kinds of operations should not be done without a positive and explicit approval from the listmaster. So far as I know, gmane had never done that for our lists.
They also had a minor problem where a couple of days after we requested that he remove all of our lists from his system, a new request from gmane came in to mirror/archive one of our other lists, which we obviously rejected. We also complained about this to Lars, and he apologized for not having recorded our preference to avoid mirroring/archiving any of our lists across the whole system.
I know that mail-archive.com provides mirroring/archiving services for mailman-users and mailman-developers, and apparently you've had that arrangement through Barry for quite some time. So long as that was an explicit arrangement you had with the listmaster, I don't mind that continuing to remain.
However, I do generally prefer to let mailing list servers provide their own archives and search functions. If the request came in today from mail-archive.com to do this function for mailman-users or mailman-developers, I would be opposed to it -- not strongly opposed, and I'd probably be out-voted by the other people who would have a say in this decision, but I would still be opposed.
Nevertheless, I recognize that some people may place a higher value on having an external site provide mirroring/archiving services, and I don't mind making it easier for Mailman administrators to make use of such functions. However, I would want to make sure that these features are difficult to abuse or misuse, and I would want to make sure that all existing subscriptions get converted over to this kind of service as it becomes available, so that the additional protective measures are applied as broadly as possible.
Is that waffley enough for you? ;)-- Brad Knowles, <brad@stop.mail-abuse.org>
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755SAGE member since 1995. See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.