[Mailman-Developers] [gpg] encrypted list management plug-in

[Stefan Schlott]

Hi,

> from calafou hacklab & friends we wanted to reimplement schleuder in
> python. speaking and speaking we arrived at the conclusion that maybe
> writing a plug-in for Mailman 3 could be a good solution: we contribute
> to a great project and we have encrypt mailing list for hacktivist people.

imho a good idea. afaik is Schleuder undergoing a "v2 rewrite" - I have
the feeling they discovered  it's not that easy to write a mailinglist
manager (even without encryption) ;-)


> first and obvious question: is there already an ongoing effort to
> achieve gpg encryption that we could join?

I tried to do that ~10 years ago. I tried to implement an addition to
the pipeline chain. The patch was further maintained by Joost van
Baal-Ilic, who reverted the pipeline approach and made it a direct patch
for Mailman. As far as I can tell, the project is resting (I haven't
checked for a long time, though).

imho the pipeline chain approach is the preferable approach. I remember
I still had to do some minor patches at the Mailman core because some
operations weren't doable otherwise (plus the configuration settings).
Unfortunately, I haven't had time to have a closer look at Mailman 3, so
I can't tell if things have become easier there.


> * do we really need to submit a merge request to the core instead of
> doing an optional debian package?

My personal recommendation would be: Stick to separate modules (i.e. the
pipeline approach) as long as possible, this should make things easier
to maintain:

* the whole encryption stuff is a lot more tricky than one might think
at first sight
* you don't want to add instability for the majority (unfortunately) of
users who don't want to use any encryption on their mailing list


Good luck, I'd love to see someone picking up that usecase!


Stefan.