[Mailman-Developers] Re: Future of pipermail?

[Chuq Von Rospach]

At 12:11 PM -0800 11/22/00, J C Lawrence wrote:

>I have slight allergic reactions here.  Yes, I agree that a generic
>modular authentication model would be extremely useful (and I'd kill
>for a sufficiently flexible one), and it would be good if Mailman
>were able to plug into such a thing were it to be available on the
>local system, I don't see this as a Mailman specific problem, or one
>that should really be considered part of or rolled into the Mailman
>design process outside of "we should be able to integrate with one
>of those if its available, otherwise we punt to our LCD
>implementation".

that's why I propose this as a separate project -- and why the first 
thing we'd need to do is define the API, then port the existing 
subscription system to the API. The end result would be that if you 
want to use the existing system, you would, but the hooks would be 
there to move to a more extensive system. I don't for a minute think 
we want that more extensive system to be the default for mailman, not 
for any significant amount of time, if ever (any more than I think 
mailman ought to require Zope, ought to require external templating 
modules, ought to require...)

So from the point of view of Mailman, the work would be to define and 
architect the API and get the existing system working with it -- and 
then work on an external project that'd interface to that API, not 
replace the existing system.

>Which, while a nice problem, is not the problem I belive Mailman is
>trying to solve.

yup. But it's part of this larger convergence and integration 
problem. The integration tools need to be created, but I'm not 
proposing they be mandatory.

>Too true (written as one who has just re-engineered his own auth
>models).  There's no rocket science here, just the normal stack of
>security model and privacy concerns.

ah, who cares about security and privacy, anyway?

But to be honest -- if we can build a single, GOOD authentication 
widget and get those issues right, doesn't that make it nicer for 
everyone else, since they can simply write to use the widge and not 
reinvent the wheel endlessly?

-- 
Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com)
Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com)

The vet said it was behavioral, but I prefer to think of it as genetic.
It cuts down on the liability -- Get Fuzzy