Samstag, 5. März 2011

Idea: LibreOffice Mail Attachment Service


During the time with OpenOffice.org, it was quite common to come up with some ideas from time to time. But during the amazing first months with LibreOffice, I simply lacked the time ... until now. So here is the very first idea that is aimed to improve the handling of mail attachments on the mailing lists.

Summary

Enable sending attachments to mailing lists and keep in mind: security, traffic, ease-of-use, costs and misuse potential.

Solution Proposal

If a mail from a subscribed person is sent to a mailing list, and this mail contains an attachment, then the attached file gets extracted from the email and saved on a server. Then, the system embeds a link to this file (or a website containing this file). After this, the mail gets delivered as usual to the mailing lists and the mail archives.

Here is a draft how this may look like for the mailing list members, once they get a mail that originally contained an attachment:


And now?

If you want to know more, please have a look at the full proposal at the dedicated wiki page. There, you can find some user stories, a more detailed technical description, and a extensive FAQ concerning this idea. Go, go, go :-)

Cheers,
Christoph