[Mailman-Developers] Mozilla funding opportunity for Mailman work

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Barry Warsaw writes:

 > What would *we* like to do that we can't do because of resources?

That's where I'm blocked.  I can't honestly put myself up as a
money-sink: I wouldn't mind getting paid for my effort, but I wouldn't
put in any less effort just because I'm unpaid. ;-)

Hm ... maybe generalizing Andrew's authn/authz stuff?  Mozilla would
probably like improved Persona support?  Andrew would be good for that
and ISTR he's a freelancer.

I wouldn't mind compensating a student even if she/he would do the
work for free anyway.  But except for Abhilash, I can't recommend any
recent student for a project I think is valuable enough to request
such resources without at the same time volunteering to mentor
intensively.  Not enough experience, and the project I have in mind is
not an extension of any GSoC project.  And I can't really volunteer at
this point.

As for Abhilash himself, I think he should concentrate on his graduate
studies.  There's no problem with him volunteering the occasional
half-day to Mailman, but I've seen far too many students seriously
hindered in getting the most out of their graduate study by committing
to consulting work.  I won't oppose him if he wants to do something,
but I won't nominate him.  (@Abhilash: If you decide to apply against
my advice, it's just advice.  I'll be happy to support you to the
extent I can in your Mailman work or your graduate study, whatever you
want to do -- though I suspect I'd be useless in the latter role. ;-)

If somebody else is willing to mentor *my* suggestions: there are a
couple of new proposals for DMARC mitigation out there.  I would be
willing to evaluate them (in the remaining hours) for use in Mailman.
Why "evaluate"?  As most of you probably know, message signing and
signature validation are normally considered MTA functions, and
Mailman needn't/shouldn't try to duplicate that functionality.
However, with experimental protocols, of course they won't be in
production MTAs for a while, so it *might* be worthwhile to offer
support in Mailman as a spur/temporary workaround while the MTAs
implement the new protocols.

I don't (yet) have a developer to recommend, though.

Steve