Created attachment 232803 [details] Guidance from core@ on the matter of closed mailing lists Some ports have MAINTAINER set to a mailing list (such as xfce@FreeBSD.org or java@), which makes perfect sense, when the software is as large and otherwise "involved". What does not make sense, is that these mailing lists are blocking non-subscribers! It should be possible for ordinary users to reach the port-maintainers without having to subscribe to anything first. Portmgr should take it upon themselves to pressure such port-maintainers to either: a) open up their mailing lists to all (relying on other anti-spam measures); or: b) provide a different address for contacting them. A maintainer address, that cannot be reached by a non-subscriber should be treated as all other undeliverable addresses -- and reset after a timeout period. (Yes, ports@ itself is blocked, which is unfortunate. Yet, being a special placeholder in this case anyway, it is easier for users to understand.)
This is not a problem for portmgr, but for postmaster (if at all). The ports@ list has been subscriber-only for years to prevent spam. Your reasoning that subscriber-only addresses are to be treated as undeliverable is flawed, it takes 1 minute to subscribe to such a list. I'm redirecting this to core for further discussion.
Created attachment 232820 [details] Bogus rejection of a patch-submission by e-mail (In reply to Rene Ladan from comment #1) > This is not a problem for portmgr Of course, it is a problem for portmgr -- as is any problem affecting multiple ports and requiring a unified response. It certainly has nothing to do with the Postmaster or Mailing Lists -- _some_ of those may legitimately be closed, just not those advertised as support-sources. > it takes 1 minute to subscribe to such a list This is flawed -- one should not be required to subscribe to anything in order to simply ASK A QUESTION. It does not matter, if the subscribing takes a minute, a second, or a week of filing applications and supplying notarized copies of supporting documents (as may be necessitated in the future by the rapid evolution of spam toolkits). FreeBSD does not require users to "register" to obtain support -- as some vendors do -- and that's, how things ought to continue. The MAINTAINER field is there for users to contact first and foremost. If the specified address bounces for almost all of such users, then it is undeliverable -- how is this not obvious? I maintain, that this attitude -- and the number of hoops a would-be contributor is required to jump through -- is an impediment to the Project. For evidence, I'm attaching a sample bounce email with an automated rejection of a patch -- on account of the sender not being a "subscriber". Because I know the project well, I resubmitted the same patch as a PR (bug #262908) -- but a newcomer, probably, wouldn't bother to do so...
As far as postmaster@ is concerned, this is a WONTFIX. Anyone can subscribe to most of our mailing lists. They can potentially expand to thousands of subscribers (as ports@ does). This makes them very attractive for spammers. Being listed on the mlmmj index makes these lists easy to find too. While I sympathise with the view that MAINTAINER addresses should be easy to reach, open mailing lists are not viable in today's internet. Subscribing to a mailing list is not an insurmountable burden. Moreover, mlmmj makes it easy to subscribe an address for posting only (nomail). We (postmaster@) will not permit non-subscribers to post to mailing lists to which anyone can subscribe.
We should at least document the 'easy' way to subscribe to the mailing list w/o getting mail in the handbook...
Created attachment 232834 [details] Suggestion for the handbook Good idea. How does this patch look?
(In reply to Philip Paeps from comment #5) Maybe also include a shot of what's seen when clicking on the name of a list at <https://lists.freebsd.org/>. <https://lists.freebsd.org/subscription/freebsd-accessibility>, for example. (Easier to click through, than to copy text then alter.)