Re: [Social-discuss] Interoperability?

[Dan Brickley]

On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 3:07 PM, Pablo Martin <address@hidden> wrote:
> I'm going to be imflamatory, but it is funny that you mention because
> mailman is one software that in my eyes has been stagnant for too many
> years, being as it is almost a monopoly in mailing lists. It can't
> provide a direct link to the archive, the archives kind of suck, no gpg
> support? cmon :)

Yes, I think it is fair to say it was stagnant. I just took a look
around and there seems to be life, but the product in its current form
is pretty retro, compared to state of the art.

I did just find http://wiki.list.org/display/DEV/Web+Interface+Status
in their wiki, which has

"MailmanRESTClient: Methods names CRUD-like: create_list(),
read_list(), update_list(), delete_list(), get_lists(),
subscribe_list(), leave_list() etc."

Also "Features to be implemented first
Ability for users to subscribe, manage subscriptions, unsubscribe, change emails
Admin ability to create/delete lists via pre-defined styles
Users ability to customize their subscirptions
Moderation
Aite admin ability to create domains, add and modify styles
List admin ability to customize lists"

The fact that Mailman was both long-term pretty stagnant, but also
massively used, is what makes it such an interesting testbed. The
theory here is that by using standards to break up the work, eg. data
model from front end, standard user IDs, permissioning, descriptions
etc., ... then we can speed up progress and cross-tool integration.
It seems the project is heading in that direction already...

> what does it mean when my identity comes back to me from a different network?
> What is the relation between a system to communicate, and a site to 
> collaborate?
> and a site to organize? and a trust system?

All good questions! Mixing up these things can really confuse users
(eg. Google Wave initial launch...)

cheers,

Dan