[Foundation-l] Possible project

[Platonides]

cool-RR wrote:
> Hello Samuel,
> 
> I'm glad I got the right list.
> 
> According to your definition, the project fits Wikimedia's goal. I will now
> introduce it.
> 
> The project is called Librelist. The official website introduces it quite
> well, so I'll just quote it:


> Librelist is a free as in freedom mailing list site for open source
> projects. It is a place for FOSS communities to discuss all the things they
> want without ads, censorship, signup requirements, bundled apps, or
> requirements that you use any particular email client or service.


> Anyone Can Make A List
> 
> You can make a mailing list by simply sending an email to list at librelist.com,
> and if it doesn’t exist, it will make it for you and subscribe you. That’s
> all there is to it, and no restrictions on making the lists.

Some steps shuld be a little harder. How do you difference a typo from a
request for a new list? Who is set as admin? Etc.


> Anyone Can Subscribe To A List
> 
> You also subscribe to a list by simply sending your first message to
> list at librelist.com. That’s it. It ditches your original message and sends
> you a confirmation you reply to. No signup or web forms involved.

>From http://librelist.com/help.html it looks like you don't need to
answer a payload to be subscribed. That will produce lots of problems
when its mailing lists gets sent spam messages with faked from headers.
It could even be abused as a remailer.
I'm pretty sure it is mentioned in some RFC, but it's proper netiquette
anyway.



> And I would say, that the biggest disadvantage Librelist currently has is
> this: Since it is a relatively new community project, it's hard to trust
> that it will stay operating and well-maintained for years. People don't want
> to start a mailing list on a service that might get closed 6 months from
> now. The founder of Librelist seems enthusiastic enough, but this is a
> non-profit project for him, so it's impossible to be certain that he will
> not become too busy for the project in the future.

That can be solved to some extent by making it easy to fork. I see that
the mailing lists are rsyncable which is very nice.
If the mailing list admin can download with a click a mailing list
backup that can be installed on a server with a couple of clicks should
librelist go down. (Note that these contain email addresses so they must
not be public)



> I think that the Wikimedia foundation should sponsor this project. I think
> it wouldn't require a big amount of resources, but it will require the
> persistence and reliability over time that Wikimedia has shown with
> Wikipedia and its other projects.

I don't think that fits cleanly into the Mission, but the decision is up
to the board.