[Zope-dev] Fully Zope-based Mailman Version

[Stephan Richter]

Hello everyone,

I just had a look into Mailman again. The API seems to be very clear, even 
though I could not find any UML diagrams anywhere. However I found out that 
porting Mailman to Zope (as a Python Product) might be a very simple task. 
Due to the nature of the project, the implementation phase could be setup 
in a couple of independent steps:

1. Convert the HTML screens to Zope DTML and connect the functionality to 
Mailman.
2. Move storage of list and user info to the ZODB
3. Move archives to the ZODB.
4. Create a nice installer that can bind the latest Mailman release with Zope.

I think a first alpha release could be produced in about 40-60 hours and 
the full-fledged Mailman Distribution beta in about 1.5 man-month (270 hours).

In fact most of the API would not even need to change, since we just need 
to insert our modified API at specific places, such as database 
connectivity and saving processes.

Later we could even provide a Mailman UserFolder and search functionality 
for the archive. For people that do not think that the ZODB is up to 
handling large archives, DBObjects could be used for transparent R2O 
mapping from PostGreSQL (or any other RDB).

The reason I write is, because I wanted to know whether someone would be 
interested in helping with this project, that would start after 
mid-December... Help can be offered in terms of programming or financial 
support of course.

Regards,
Stephan

--
Stephan Richter
CBU - Physics and Chemistry Student
Web2k - Web Design/Development & Technical Project Management