Bryan Bishop announced on Thursday the potential discontinuation of the Bitcoin-dev email list by January 2024, a move that could accelerate the ossification of the Bitcoin ecosystem and risk fragmenting its community. Hosted by The Linux Foundation since 2011 and 2015 respectively, these and related spinoff email lists are set to cease by the conclusion of 2023.
Members are already preparing for this eventuality by backing up data onto secondary domains such as ozlabs.org. Bishop presented several potential alternatives including forums, private channels, or other hosting platforms like Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Groups and Groups.io. However, he expressed reservations about Google's history of service termination, possible Gmail account requirements for list access, concerns over Google's monopolistic behavior, and difficulties in adopting new features or Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs).
As a solution, Bishop suggested a return to forum roots like BitcoinTalk.org or a hybrid approach. He cited successful transitions made by other communities, including Python and Ethereum Research. Despite all the alternatives proposed, Bishop also acknowledged the possibility of doing "literally nothing," which would result in the loss of a group email communication system widely used among developers.
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