[Mailman-Developers] URGENT: Google Summer of Code status report and code due

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Alexander Sulfrian writes:

 > If the list_name would be also reversed, it could lead to some
 > surprising subtree clashing. For example web2.0 would be in the same
 > subtree like something1.0 (people sometimes use strange list
 > names...).

I agree that list_name should *not* be reversed; it is an atom.

This "atomicity" is a problem.  We have three different namespaces and
syntaxes to deal with here: RFC 5322 email addresses, RFC 2919
List-Ids, and RFC 5536.  In RFC 5322, there's a special class, the
"dotted-atom", which may be used in the mailbox component of an
address (and thus denotes an atomic resource).  But not in RFC 5536,
where dots aren't allowed in newsgroup name components.  I think this
is a problem for post-GSoC, though.

 > Even with the current implementation the group names are
 > ugly.

I would expect that MUA presentations will deal with this.  For
example, exploiting the hierarchy, the dots could appear as
breadcrumbs:

    mailman > org > python > mailman-developers

    MAILMAN-DEVELOPERS

    [summary lines]

    [current message header info such as author, subject, date]

    [current message body]

 > Maybe we should eliminate the dots from the list names by default
 > and only allow separate groups with the alias mechanism?

Quite possibly, but don't worry about it for the purposes of GSoC I
think.  The worst that would happen is that a few, relatively unusual
lists would be inaccessible.  But I think dealing with this requires
some thought, so let's not get committed to a hasty design.  Document
that dotted names may show strange behavior (including being
inaccessible), and move on for now.