[Mailman-Developers] Requirements for a new archiver

[Barry Warsaw]

On Wed, 2003-10-29 at 16:54, J C Lawrence wrote:

> Aye, picking the right interface abstractions is key.

Right on.

> There's also a disjoint between the novice SysAdm case who loves the
> fact of Mailman's all-in-one service, and the more meaty chap who
> integrates what he needs to.  Much of Mailman's appeal at the low end is
> its all-in-one simple-to-install nature.  (Well, ignoring thee GID
> FAQ...)

Yep, and I really really want Mailman 3 to take this concept farther. 
Some things that I think will help include, using Twisted to eliminate
the /requirement/ of Apache integration and possibly the incoming mail
server integration, as well as implement a bulk mailer to eliminate the
need for an outgoing mail server.  Ideally, it will still be possible to
integrate with a Postfix for incoming and outgoing, but it shouldn't be
necessary to get up and running.

> Mailman v2.1 has a plugin layer for the membership roster.  Its not a
> fully mature interface, but there are LDAP and SQL adaptors in the wild.

This interface was largely bolted on, so it's clumsy.  Mailman 3 will be
defined by interfaces from the start.

> At some point those adaptors will move into the Mailman core.  If we
> move the archiving components (storage, presentation, index) behind
> plugin interfaces as well there's a reasonable opportunity for similar
> third parties to build adaptor layers which then also move into the
> Mailman core.
> 
> Oh yeah, and just to keep Nigel Metheringham hopping:
> 
>   Mailman just doesn't have enough configuration options.

Heh.  That's another issue.  I'm sure Mailman 3 will grow many more
configuration options.  The trick is making them manageable (and mostly
ignorable -- i.e. the defaults Usually Work out of the box).

I've been experimenting with ideas for list styles which will make list
admins lives easier I think, without reducing the flexibility for
experts.

-Barry