On 7/30/19 5:52 PM, Bret Busby wrote:
On 30/07/2019, M. L. Wilson <[email protected]> wrote:
On 7/30/19 4:46 PM, Gerald Henriksen wrote:
While not related to opensource, Apple provides a good example of the
death of email and the shift to the web. For a long time Apple
operated several mailing lists for developers of software that runs on
macOS and a couple of years ago Apple announced that they would be
shutting down the mailing lists and that everyone should move to the
webforums. There was much angst and wailing, and when Apple didn't
reconsider equivalent mailing lists were set up on groups.io. Those
mailing lists are dead with no one posting to them. Everyone moved to
the web and continued on with life because email wasn't as essential
as they all claimed.
It is often inconvenient to have to launch a web browser (as bloated as
they have become) to simply send a few bytes of text communication.
Browsers are massive ecosystems with their own caveats and security
issues. Also, increasing consolidation in the browser market around one
engine (Google's), also has implications for a smaller OS community such
as DragonFly.
For example look at how much work went into getting rust working on
DragonFly (necessary for Firefox). If the current trends around browsers
continue, it may continue take inordinate amounts of time to keep these
things working well on DragonFly. That is one issue, but how do you
communicate in the meantime while these transitions occur? Pull out that
handy Linux/Windows system to launch Firefox/Chromium?
Apple's forray into the webforums that you've mentioned is eerily
similar to their walled garden approach to things. Web fora reduce
corporate liability. Anything on them can be removed, reworded or
censured at any time.
I have an indexed database of every single email sent to users@ since I
started using DragonFly. In a second I can call up reference to a
previous problem and troubleshoot. This is invaluable.
Mike
And, I have at least 15 years of email messages, including relating to
hundreds of mailing lists (I think it is somewhere around 20GB), and,
fora come and go, like other trends and fashions, and so, lose the
content of the communications, and, with being subscribed to multiple
mailing lists, it is much easier, if a person does not have to
remember hundreds of forum passwords, and, downloading emails from
hundreds of mailing lists, and, running them through hundreds of
filters, takes much less time than having to traverse through even
five or ten fora. Alpine is a wonderful communication device, and, its
father, pine, is older (and more stable) than the Internet (not the
WWW - that is just a newish accessory, that runs on the Internet).
Mailing lists make information accessible, and, storable (?); fora are
simply obstructive and transient.
That said, might I add that to me MLs are much more convenient than web
forums.
You don't have to poll for new content (and forget to poll some forums
on the way). If there's a new message it gets delivered to your home
(email account). What you are not interested in, you can delete. Sad
world if "modern developers" can only handle web forums. I don't see any
benefit in them except that you can use clicky-di-colory content. As
always nowadays, presentation trumps content...
regards,
chris
