[Mailman-Developers] Re: [Mailman-Announce] RELEASED Mailman 2.1 beta 5

[Greg Ward]

On 19 November 2002, Phil Stracchino said:
> Hey, I just had an idea for a Mailman (not necessarily 2.1) feature
> enhancement.  Smack me if this isn't reasonable.
[...]
> So, my idea: GPG support for mailman, which the server operator has a
> configuration option to disable, and allow registered listmembers to
> upload a GPG public key.  This key could be used in either or both of 
> two ways:

Sounds like a good idea to me.  If I may channel Barry, you'd best wait
till after 2.1.

> 1.  Provide an "Encrypt password reminders using GPG" option on the user

Suggestion #1: say "PGP" everywhere, not "GPG".  PGP is the name of the
protocol/file format (err, which is it anyways?), as well as the name of
an implementation that's been around for over a decade.  GPG (or GnuPG)
is the name of another implementation that only us geeks know about.

> without first uploading a key, it should display a message explaining
> that a GPG public key is required in order to enable this option, and
> explaining to the user how to upload a key.

Suggestion #2: give the option of supplying a key server from which to
fetch my key periodically.  If I'm going to use this feature, I'm going
to use it on half a dozen Mailman servers throughout the world, and I
don't want to have to upload my key everywhere -- or redo it when my
current key expires.

(I suppose you should also request a key fingerprint to go along with
the key server, in which case I still have to redo some work when my key
expires.  Sigh.  This, presumably, is what Chuq meant by needing a
master's degree to use the bloody thing.)

        Greg
-- 
Greg Ward <gward@python.net>                         http://www.gerg.ca/
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than have to have a frontal lobotomy.