This does come up alot. (But not much has ever happened, right?)
Just to be precise, I think we're talking about two different things.
Mailman doesn't take over qmail's job. It's not an SMTP mailer. Mailman is more of a combination procmail/acs-lite targeting subscription/operation/distribution/digestification(yum!) of emails.
Mailman can use qmail, and if bboard were to use mailman (or a new bboardman that is) it doesn't mean that the rest of the ACS should not be better integrated with qmail (which it should be). It's just saying that it would be nice to be able to let users manage bboard properties (including creating and replying to messages) entirely through the use of email.
This could certainly be done with qmail integration directly. To do so would mean learning and reimplementing what other mailing list manager programs have been doing for years. It would simplify ACS requirements to do it directly, as sites would not need Python. It would probably not be a simple or quick task. I think the quick task is to integrate with Mailman, especially after (this guy from)GreatBridge finishes the Mailman/PostgreSQL integration effort. When that happens, presumably, what one would need to do is just to populate certain PostgreSQL tables with new web based posts and read from various tables to determine new email based posts.
Put another way, I would trust myself to integrate with Mailman properly. I wouldn't trust myself to better integrate with qmail in a manner that would mean that users could post new messages that get distributed to other users AND I wouldn't get called at 3am with calls of how my errant bboard/qmail integration was responsible for a mail loop/DOS/imminent collapse of the net.
