In my experience, in communities that use mailing lists for patch submission as opposed to just discussion, it's the norm to keep posting open to non-subscriber

In my experience, in communities that use mailing lists for patch submission as opposed to just discussion, it's the norm to keep posting open to non-subscribers. In the Linux kernel we use so many separate mailing lists that to subscribe to all of them when you just want to send a couple of patches would be a complete disaster. Protocol is to keep posting open to everyone and to ensure that you always use Reply To All to keep every list and individual in the loop on replies. I don't disagree with you though that mailing lists are painful - and I particularly agree that the archive experience is sorely, sorely, sorely lacking.