This was somewhat discussed before and if I remember right, the main reason on having the mailing list is it is just easier for developers / Maemo team to reply via email.

I'm not really against it, but is it really necessary to maintain six mailing lists? I suggest to just maintain one and move others here at Talk.

The problem is there on both sides. I am subscribed to several mailing lists and I do get emails of topics I just don't care about. What's worse is that there is no unsubscribe for that particular topic, so I get all the email replies on that topic, forever...