Re: Crazy talk: migrate to Google Apps?

James Polley wrote:

> Disclaimer: I'm talking here in my role as a SLUG member, not in my role as
> a committee member; I reserve the right to have a different opinion when I
> put my VP hat on.

I'm a slug member who doesn't work for google.

However I have been running FP-Syd as a google group for nearly two
years.

> The second-biggest downside is that I haven't (yet) been able to figure out
> how arbitrary email addresses can be subscribed to the list: as far as I can
> tell, only email addresses with an associated Google Account can subscribe
> (the email address gets a confirmation email with a link; you have to follow
> the link to confirm on a form that you want to subscribe, and you have to
> log in to a Google Account in order to get to the form).[3]

For some groups, you can also subscribe by sending mail to
[email protected], just like a regular mailing list.

> What do you think? Is a migration to Google Apps crazy talk? Is it something
> we should consider? What matters more to us - using FOSS as far as is
> possible, even if it severly strains our resources - or being pragmatic,
> paying a small amount of money to save us a lot of time?

What you can 100% be absolutely assured of is more time dealing with
spam. The *only* way to keep spam of the FP-Syd list is to only allow
subscribers to post *and* to moderate all new subscribers (yes, people
subscribe to google groups just to spam them). FP-Syd only has about
120 members, the SLUG mailing list would probably have about 10 times
more.

Personally I wish I had the time, knowledge and experience to pull FP-Syd
off google.

Erik
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Erik de Castro Lopo
http://www.mega-nerd.com/
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