[Zope-dev] Re: Mailinglists on Launchpad

[Jim Fulton]

On Feb 24, 2008, at 12:47 PM, Tres Seaver wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Christian Theune wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Martijn Faassen schrieb:
>>> Christian Zagrodnick wrote:
>>>> On 2008-02-18 11:20:05 +0100, Christian Theune <ct at gocept.com>  
>>>> said:
>>>>
>>>>> Launchpad started the beta tests for their mailing list offers. A
>>>>> while ago we discussed this option for future hosting of the  
>>>>> mailing
>>>>> lists.
>>>>>
>>>>> The current implementation has the restriction that the mailing  
>>>>> lists
>>>>> can not be hosted using custom domains (@zope.org).
>>>> IMHO when migrating mailing lists the addresses should not change.
>>> I agree. I'm all for outsourcing the hosting of our mailing list,  
>>> but I
>>> think it'd be a bad idea to change all the email addresses. It'll  
>>> break
>>> people's settings, possibly break various archives, and so on. I  
>>> think
>>> you should let them know that this this is important for us.
>>
>> I'll update them to say we'll wait until we can use our own domain.

I'll note that I don't care about this.  I'm for taking them up on  
their offer in either case.

> Can somebody please actually make the case for this, before we decide?

I'm unsure which "this" you are referring to.

> Here are a couple of things I don't know about the plan:
>
> - What ongoing costs (bandwidth, mostly) are we incurring (covered by
>   ZC, probably) to run the mailman out of our own hardware.

Where "our" own is ZC's own.  Since no one at ZC has complained about  
this, I assume this isn't a big deal.  I can ask if anyone wants me  
to. :)

The biggest cost at this point is management of mailman and the  
machine.  This is the real cost. Management of mailman is a PITA.  The  
machine is a fairly old multi-use machine that is low on disk space.  
It consumed a fair bit of ZC operations time. Moving mailman off would  
reduce the load and give it plenty of space.  If we weren't  
considering the generous launchpad offer, we'd be looking for another  
machine, probably outside of ZC's cluster.

> - Will existing administrators and moderators be able to continue
>   working with lists as easily as currently (preferably, they  
> shouldn't
>   even notice the change).

I think this is mostly me.  I don't want to do this any more.  I'm  
hoping that we can find some new moderators as part of the move.  In  
any case, I think Launchpad is using mailman, so I don't think it  
administration will change much, except that Launchpad will probably  
do a better job of keeping mailman current and, given that they employ  
one of the mailman authors, are in a better position to make  
improvements to make things easier.

> - Will any URLs (list archives, info pages, whatever) break?

I assume that, at worst, we could set up redirects.

> - Will we be able to create new lists as easily (or more) as we can
>   now?

 From my POV, it will be easier. :)

> - What will the "switching costs" be in both directions?

We are going to have switching costs in either case.  mail.zope.org/ 
svn.zope.org/cvs.zope.org/download.zope.org can't handle mailman much  
longer.

Jim

--
Jim Fulton
Zope Corporation