[cgiapp] Re: CGI::Application mailing list is evolving

[Mark Stosberg]

> What I talked to Mark about this morning was that I think the nature of how
> these projects can be supported is changing.  There is a clear multiplicity
> of features which are useful, beyond just a mailing list.  I've used
> Sourceforge, but I find it dated and shaky.  Irrational though it may be, I
> get a much better feeling about something like Google Code (
> http://code.google.com) + Google Groups.  I feel like Google is here to
> stay, and actively "gets it" regarding software development AND open source.

I already manage a couple of Google Groups, and can speak to some of their
drawbacks. In the beginning I spent a good deal of time de-spamming and
de-porning the site, which is no fun. Because Google Groups is so big, it makes
a great spam target.  The only real solution I found for that was to manually
approve every single subscription request. Also not fun.

Another Google Group I visit has the "unresponsive maintainer" problem, if you
care to visit, you can see the cock sucking photos permanently spammed to the
front page of the Google Group now (NSFW):

http://groups.google.com/group/clever-cycles-community

The maintainer got tired of de-porning the site and seems to be abandoning it.

For me, this choice is also a philosophical one. The open source movement is a
decentralized network of grassroots volunteers. Small groups of us trust each
other and work together on common goals. I would rather trust someone in our
group to run a list on open source software (Perl or not) than I would to give
up the control to a centralized, transnational corporation. In this regard, I
would rather choose staying with the current list setup or Lyle's proposed over
moving the list management to Google. 

That said, I also recognize the pragmatism in Jesse's suggestion. I contiue to
manage two Google Groups because they were easy to set up and work well enough.

    Mark