Re: Why use maillists??

[Craig McClanahan]

Serge Knystautas wrote:

J Aaron Farr wrote:

Finally, Jakarta did have forums at one time but I don't think they 
were heavily
used:

  http://issues.apache.org/jive/index.jsp


IMO this is the best point.  Open source projects get to try dozens of 
different communication patterns (IM, IRC, NNTP, personal email, 
Forums, Wikis, mailing lists, phone calls, CVS, bugzilla, etc...).

Mailing lists have emerged as the most effective means for open source 
development.

There's another reason that is critically important to me ... offline 
access.  I often have to travel with my laptop on an airplane, and 
mailing lists let me take the current state of my IMAP-accessible 
mailbox with me and perform offline processing, ready for 
synchronization next time I've got Internet access.

Note that the fact that Apache uses mailing lists does *not* prohibit 
accessing that information via forum-oriented UIs ... anything from 
mailing list archives to NNTP-based access (gmane.org and friends) make 
that quick and easy.  So, get off our case already!  :-)

Personally, I won't use any forum-based communication mechanism unless 
I'm paid to do so.  Mailing lists have proven their worth for longer 
than some of the complainers about them have been alive :-).

Craig McClanahan

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