What is "gmane"

Gmane (pronounced "mane") is an e-mail to news gateway. It allows users to access electronic mailing lists as if they were Usenet newsgroups, and also through a variety of web interfaces. Gmane is an archive; it never expires messages (unless explicitly requested by users). Gmane also supports importing list postings made prior to a list's inclusion on the service.

Incoming mail is checked by SpamAssassin and anti-virus software so that spam and viruses are hidden or deleted. Since Gmane is a bidirectional gateway, you can also post on the mailing lists. Outgoing mail is checked by TMDA to make sure that no spam will be posted to the lists using Gmane.

The project was initiated in 2001 by Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen, one of the authors of Gnus, a newsreader for Emacs. It began operating publicly on 11 February 2002 after a one-month test period.

, Gmane's homepage boasts inclusion of 129,592,482 messages in its archives, from a total of 20,070 mailing lists.

On the 28 July 2016, Lars announced that he was considering shutting Gmane down. The Web interface was taken offline.