On Sat, May 22, 2004 22:03:55 PM -0400, William M. Quarles
(walrus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:
"Free software is mainly developed on mailing lists. Mailing lists have many advantages over other forms of communication, but they have two weaknesses: It's difficult to follow discussions in a sensible way, and mailing list archives (when they exist) have a tendency to disappear over time.
"Several mailing list archives exist, but these are all hidden under a web interface. Reading mail that way is not convenient. Reading mail as if it were news is convenient. "
I don't know about mailing list archives disappearing over time. The other "weakness", however, is in idiot mail clients and misguided users, not in mailing lists. Any decent mail client *supports* threading, so it makes possible to "to follow discussions in a sensible way".
Ciao, Marco F.
Except the threads are reassembled based on the author leaving the previous message quoted. Newsgroups actually keep track of which message is in reply to which other message.
Peace, William
