[Mailman-Developers] [Mailman-Users] GNU Mailman roadmap

[Brian J Mingus]

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