DragonFlyBSD Project Update - colo upgrade, future trends

[Christian Groessler]

On 7/30/19 5:52 PM, Bret Busby wrote:
> On 30/07/2019, M. L. Wilson <ipc at peercorpstrust.org> 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