Mailing list management and archiving

About project mailing lists
Mailing list features
Mailing list archives
Mailing list administration

About project mailing lists

Mailing lists provide a way for developers on a project to communicate with one another and to receive notifications of project events. In general, the way mailing lists work depends upon the type of project:

- Open source project mailings lists are open to any subscriber, although project owners can choose to limit who may subscribe and post to certain lists.
- Proprietary project mailing lists are always private, that is, limited only to approved subscribers who are usually project members.

In either case, all project mailing lists are created with anzu, an open source mail alias and list management extension of qmail simple mail transfer protocol (smtp). Anzu supports multiple domains, enabling each project to define and manage its own unique set of mailing lists for the project domain.

Every standard development project is created with the following set of default lists:

> dev@PROJECTNAME.domain.com
>   The main list for developers to discuss specific project development issues and requirements for version control in the project.
> cvs@PROJECTNAME.domain.com
>   Automated notifications of file version control changes and discussion of those changes.
> announce@PROJECTNAME.domain.com
>   Announcements of new releases and other major project events.
> issues@PROJECTNAME@domain.com
>   Automated notifications and discussions of the project's reported issues (defects, enhancements, features, tasks, and patches) and changes made to issues, such as reassignment, comments, or resolution.
> users@PROJECTNAME.domain.com
>   A more general discussion list for the project's end users.

Discussion-only projects are set up with one mailing list initially.

Default lists for each project are "top-level" mailing lists. If traffic relating to a particular module or component becomes too high for a particular top-level list, the project owner can create a separate mailing list to splinter off the discussion.

Most lists also have a corresponding "digest" version -- subscribers to the digest list receive a single message per day with all of that day's postings.

Mailing list features

The default, customary mailing list features are:

- list subscribe/unsubscribe
- digest subscribe/unsubscribe
- post a message
- get help
- view the archive

These generic list options are generated for every project mailing list. Project owners can modify these default mailing lists, add new lists, delete unnecessary lists, add and remove subscribers, add and remove moderators, and set other mailing list parameters. See mailing list administration.

For instructions on using the mailing lists for a particular project, first click on the name of the project at left, then select "Mailing List" in the Project Resources tool bar.

> Subscribing
> To subscribe to a list named LIST for a project named PROJ, send a blank email message to:
> LIST-subscribe@PROJ.domain.xxx
> For example, to subscribe to the dev mailing list for a project's platform component, send email to
> dev-subscribe@platform.PROJ.domain.xxx

> Unsubscribing
> To unsubscribe from a list named LIST for a project named PROJ, send a blank email message to:
> LISTNAME-unsubscribe@PROJ.domain.xxx
> For example, to unsubscribe from the dev mailing list in project platform, send email to
> dev-unsubscribe@platform.PROJ.domain.xxx

> Mailing list digests
> If you find that you are getting too many email messages from a given list, you can sign up for a daily digest of messages instead.
> To subscribe, send a message to LIST-digest-subscribe@PROJ.domain.xxx
> To unsubscribe, send a message to LIST-digest-unsubscribe@PROJ.domain.xxx

> Posting a Message
> To post a message to a list named LIST for a project named PROJ, send your message to:
> LISTNAME@PROJ.domain.xxx
> For example, to post a message to the dev mailing list in project platform, send email to
> dev@platform.PROJ.domain.xxx

> Getting Help
> To get an automated help message for a list named LIST for a project named PROJ, send a blank email message to:
> LIST-help@PROJ.domain.xxx
> For example, for the dev mailing list in project platform, send email to
> dev-help@platform.PROJ.domain.xxx

> To communicate with the list moderator, send an email message to:
> LIST-owner@PROJ.domain.xxx

Mailing list archives

Project/component mailing list archiving is handled by eyebrowse, a brand new open source tool that stores and indexes list messages, providing multiple options for browsing, reading, and searching mailing list archives via a web browser. Beyond storing messages, eyebrowse adds a database, and text indexing engine to handle rapid message search and retrieval.

To view archives for a mailing list, first click on the project in the list, then select the "Mailing List" option in the Project Resources tool bar to see a list of all mailing lists for that project. Click on the View Archive link next to the list you want to view.

The default view for browsing mailing list archives is by date summary. Other summary views available are: by author, by subject, and by thread. You can also do text string searches of archived messages using simple Boolean operators.

Mailing list administration

Project owners customize project mailing lists in the Mailing List Edit screen, accessed by clicking the Project Edit link on the Project Home page. Mailing list links at the bottom of the page display an edit screen for each list.

Project owners establish mailing list management policies by configuring two important aspects of project mailing lists:

Subscription moderation
  Subscriptions to each mailing list can either be open or on an approval basis. Subscriptions to proprietary project mailing lists are moderated by default because these lists are always private. Open source project owners can specify moderated subscriptions for certain mailing lists if desired.
Posting policy
  Mailing lists can be configured to handle message posts at three different levels:

- "Discuss" allows subscribers to post, and moderates posts (requires approval) from others.
- "Announce" moderates all posts.
- "Automated-notification" allows anyone to post messages without moderation.

As part of the configuration options for all lists, a footer in every message with subscribe/unsubscribe instructions can be turned on or off.