Simple: you don't use the browser at all. You download the source code via your VCS client. You find the thing you want to change, make a branch, modify it, gen

Simple: you don't use the browser at all. You download the source code via your VCS client. You find the thing you want to change, make a branch, modify it, generate a patch. You email the list with your patch and a very detailed description of what you're doing and why. Lots of people reply, and your email client shows you the threads hierarchically. It makes sense to you because you started the whole conversation and see their in-line replies in your email client. As an old fogey who started with mailing lists, and still uses them to send patches, it's actually much simpler than browser-based workflows. Most of it is your own workflow in your own repo clone in your own environment. The patch and email threads are a universal abstraction; you add the rest yourself, with any method you're familiar with. This removes any complexity that would otherwise be imposed by the browser, remote web app, etc. It's like sending someone a letter in the mail, rather than choosing between 15 different messaging systems, protocols, apps, OSes, etc. If you can read words you can figure out your own way to deal with the contents. And as far as it dying out: I actually think it's faster to communicate via mailing list. The thing a GitHub clone gets you is co-located collaboration, and CI tests. Those things are very powerful, and really should be integrated into a single open source standard, rather than a lot of custom web apps. But the modern software developer doesn't understand the value of standards.