[Mailman-Users] GMane?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "jam" == John A Martin <jam at jamux.com> writes:

    jam> I have read many mailing lists as newsgroups on Gmane for
    jam> several years and have been unaware of missing anything
    jam> substantial from a subscribed list.

You may not be missing anything, but I missed at least one of your
posts, receiving Brad's reply to it almost 24 hours in advance of your
post.  Even today this is common for netnews.

    CC> I always wondered how people could possibly post a question
    CC> that had been beated to death on a list all day, and I'm
    CC> starting to think newsgroup reading mode is the reason.

    jam> Lay it perhaps instead to the disappearance of the
    jam> conveniently searchable Gmane archive.

Easy come, easy go.  Gmane started its service for no apparent reason
without notifying anyone, they stopped it for no apparent reason
without notifying anyone.  They have a history of being an attractive
nuisance (publishing email addresses and other spam-facilitating
activities).  It's fundamentally irresponsible, but that is the way
they operate.

Feel free to rely on them if you judge it appropriate to do so.  But
don't attribute their unreliability to Mailman's maintainers and
volunteers---it's inherent in the way Gmane is organized and operates.

For what it's worth, although I don't use Gmane and consider their
operation to be irresponsible, I'm moderately in favor of allowing
them to gateway the Mailman lists for the convenience it apparently
affords many users.  I don't really have a problem with the
irresponsibility as such---I'd better not, everything *I* do comes
with NO WARRANTY attached!  However, when I publish software, people
who don't want to assume all risk of using it are free not to use it.

Similarly, the Mailman list admins should be free not to use Gmane, or
to require Gmane improvements as a condition of using Gmane, if they
dislike the risks it involves for (some of) their subscribers more
than they like the conveniences (for some other subscribers).  The
fact that Gmane *re*subscribed to Mailman lists in violation of both
their own policy and a previous request to cease and desist speaks
volumes for the risks and their lack of respect for others' privacy,
IMHO.


-- 
School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.