What are mail lists and discussion groups?
Mail lists and discussion groups are what places like Yahoo! Groups provide. A mail list can serve a lively collection of people–or a small community–who share common interests. When paired with a drop box, such a community can share artifacts and even work on them–a small, ad hoc open-artifact community. The java.net mailing list and discussion groups are based on CollabNet’s SourceCast software tools.