Re: Code of Conduct on the Debian mailinglists
On Mon, Aug 07, 2006 at 11:39:51AM +0900, Miles Bader wrote:
> "Joe Smith" <unknown_kev_cat@hotmail.com> writes:
> > So I really wonder why mailing lists are so common.
>
> It sort of depends on what you're looking for.
>
> Some advantages of mailing lists:
>
> * E-mail generally has a "wider reach" -- it gets past corporate
> firewalls, (my company has never allowed external nntp connections),
> works even on strange systems, etc.
Point. Then again, if your corporate sysadmins don't want you reading
news, they probably don't want you reading mailinglists, either.
> * With email, you can use the same MUA you always use, with the
> features you're used to. People are _used_ to email, know how to
> configure it.
OTOH, many MUA's (including Thunderbird, mutt with some patches, pine,
Mozilla Mail, MS Outlook Express, and of course gnus (which is more of a
news client than a mail client)) can read news just fine[1], with an
interface that is almost the same as the mail interface. Outlook
Express, which does not support threading in the mail interface, will
suddenly support threading for NNTP, too.
[1] "just fine" has to be taken with a grain of salt in the context of
Outlook Express, obviously -- it doesn't do anything "just fine".
> * With a mailing list you get a private copy of every message, without
> having to figure out how to setup a nntp server.
OTOH, most news clients can be configured to store articles locally in
the absense of a local nntp server; additionally, Debian includes
"leafnode", a news server that requires almost no configuration and that
stores news on your local machine. Personally, I run leafnode on my
laptop.
--
Fun will now commence
-- Seven Of Nine, "Ashes to Ashes", stardate 53679.4
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