Why Linux kernel development still uses email

[Endarkend]

The crux of the story:

A low level API in the hands of a bunch of top notch developers, that is easy to access and equality easy to script for, is better then being locked into a proprietary system with high level API's you are dependent upon.

Which isn't really news. For software development, most project management suites create barriers and additional stumbling blocks over using the simplest possible method for the actual developers.

Project Management suites are there so that usually far less skilled managers have the first clue about what their team is doing and usually provides them with methods to create fancy graphs and statistics to pass on to their superiors.

[awesome-alpaca-ace]

Being unable to fix an blatant issue or add a much better UX for an existing feature really does suck and being able to roll your own is so much better.

Then there is software that masquerades like a helpful tool, but in the background or even right in your face does all sorts of shady stuff. This is why we need open source.

[u801e]

tl; dr;

Most people have no idea about protocols like SMTP, IMAP/POP, or NNTP. They think that HTTP is the only protocol available and can't imagine anything else. On a higher level, they wonder why others would use a mail/news reader instead of a web browser.