From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 3 16:23:08 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03263; Sat, 3 Jul 93 16:23:08 GMT Received: from msmail.kgs.ukans.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03256; Sat, 3 Jul 93 09:23:01 PDT Message-Id: <9307031623.AA03256@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> Date: 3 Jul 1993 11:21:49 -0600 From: "pfterry" Subject: To: "List Managers Mailing List" Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I'm running Anastasios Kotsikonas' listserver version: 5.5 with Ida sendmail (I think) on a Sun IPC. One member of a mailing list that I manage has complained that it is "primitive" compared to the 1.7f version of the VMS listserver. Specifically, it doesn't support some of the commands that he's become used to. Is there a way that I can improve the functionality of the listserver on the Sun? Thanks in advance. Fred +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Fred Terry, Kansas Geological Survey 1930 Constant Ave., Lawrence, KS 66047 pfterry@cyberpunk.kgs.ukans.edu +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I've tried to relax, but--I dunno--I seem to be more comfortable tense. From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 3 23:44:28 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04400; Sat, 3 Jul 93 23:44:28 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04393; Sat, 3 Jul 93 16:44:20 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA09921; Sat, 3 Jul 93 18:35:56 EDT Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1993 14:15:51 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Your mail Message-Id: <930703.141551-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: "List Managers Mailing List" In-Reply-To: Your message of 3 Jul 1993 11:21:49 -0600 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 3 Jul 1993 11:21:49 -0600 pfterry said: >I'm running Anastasios Kotsikonas' listserver version: 5.5 with Ida sendmail (I >think) on a Sun IPC. One member of a mailing list that I manage has complained >that it is "primitive" compared to the 1.7f version of the VMS listserver. >Specifically, it doesn't support some of the commands that he's become used to. >Is there a way that I can improve the functionality of the listserver on the >Sun? Ahh.. Now this is a bit of a "curious" situation; it looks like you are comparing Tasos' "Listserver" with Eric's "Revised LISTSERV", a listserver versus a listserv... :-) But hey! I didn't know Eric had already put a VMS version of his MLM into production (or is it a beta version?). Now the funny thing is that someone on comp.mail.misc is asking for just such a thing... Has Eric posted more news re a VMS version of "LISTSERV"? Another (formal) point btw. The name of Tasos' product is "Listserver", that of Eric's is "LISTSERV", both are list servers - or more general - Mailing List Managers. I just issued a formal correction on comp.mail.misc; some people seem to think "listserv" is a generic word, which imho is like saying all gems (false and real) are "diamonds"... >I've tried to relax, but--I dunno--I seem to be more comfortable tense. So did I, but any further, and I'm dead... ;-) Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 6 14:52:39 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11079; Tue, 6 Jul 93 14:52:39 GMT Received: from radiomail (radiomail.net) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11072; Tue, 6 Jul 93 07:52:33 PDT Received: by radiomail; id AA10566; Tue, 6 Jul 93 07:48:05 -0700 Message-Id: <9307061448.AA10566@radiomail> Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 07:46:53 -0800 GMT From: Mark Schaub (via RadioMail) Subject: UNIX listserver To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Anybody know of a listserver that runs under UNIX? Specifically, we have a Data General 6240 running DG/UX 5.4.2 (it's AT&T compliant). Thanks ======================================= Mark A. Schaub Manager, Networks & Telecommunications University Hospital Consortium uhw2@RadioMail.Net schaub@borg.uhc.edu ======================================= From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 6 16:31:57 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11218; Tue, 6 Jul 93 16:31:57 GMT Received: from radiomail (radiomail.net) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11211; Tue, 6 Jul 93 09:31:51 PDT Received: by radiomail; id AA13789; Tue, 6 Jul 93 09:27:41 -0700 Message-Id: <9307061627.AA13789@radiomail> Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 09:26:30 -0800 GMT From: Mark Schaub (via RadioMail) Subject: email to MHS To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk o: list-manager@greatcircle.com Ok, now I've got a really tough one. Our email comes into our big UNIX box. Most of our network users are on PCs and Novell with MHS as a local mail router. I need to get the mail moved from the UNIX box over to the Novell mail server so MHS can deliver it. Is anybody using something that does this??? Thanks --------------------------------------- Mark A. Schaub Manager, Networks & Telecommunications University Hospital Consortium uhw2@radiomail.net schaub@borg.uhc.edu --------------------------------------- From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 6 19:43:20 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11652; Tue, 6 Jul 93 19:43:20 GMT Received: from mozart.aero.ufl.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11639; Tue, 6 Jul 93 12:43:10 PDT Received: from localhost by mozart.aero.ufl.edu (5.61ufl/4.10) id AA11581; Tue, 6 Jul 93 15:45:45 -0400 Message-Id: <9307061945.AA11581@mozart.aero.ufl.edu> To: Mark Schaub (via RadioMail) , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: UNIX listserver In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 06 Jul 93 07:46:53 BST." <9307061448.AA10566@radiomail> Date: Tue, 06 Jul 93 15:45:44 -0400 From: mauricio@mozart.aero.ufl.edu X-Mts: smtp Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Anybody know of a listserver that runs under UNIX? Specifically, we have a > Data General 6240 running DG/UX 5.4.2 (it's AT&T compliant). The two that I remember right now are Procmail and Listserv... From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 7 00:56:14 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA12430; Wed, 7 Jul 93 00:56:14 GMT Received: from relay1.UU.NET by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA12407; Tue, 6 Jul 93 17:55:56 PDT Received: from spool.uu.net (via LOCALHOST) by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA13825; Tue, 6 Jul 93 20:58:15 -0400 Received: from telesoft.UUCP by spool.uu.net with UUCP/RMAIL (queueing-rmail) id 205644.7522; Tue, 6 Jul 1993 20:56:44 EDT Received: from lone.alsys.com by flash.alsys.com (4.1/TS-1.2a) id AA26454; Tue, 6 Jul 93 17:31:28 PDT Message-Id: <9307070031.AA26454@flash.alsys.com> Received: by lone.alsys.com (4.1/TS-1.2) id AA21009; Tue, 6 Jul 93 17:31:25 PDT From: mnejat@lone.alsys.com Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 17:31:25 PDT X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.2 4/12/91) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Having problems building listserver6.0 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I get the following messages when trying to build listserver 6.0: flash (16) setup UNIX ListServer system setup script ----------------------------------- Version 6.0 System already built under /user/server Looks like you cannot compile with the -DHAVE_SELECT_H flag; run systest. Looks like you cannot compile with the -DHAVE_ULIMIT_H flag; run systest. Compile with -DHAVE_SETJMP_H if you already have not done so. Compile with -DHAVE_TZFILE_H if you already have not done so. You may wish to compile with -DSYSLOG=facility to use syslog(3) for reports. Do you wish to use unproto for compilation [n]? y Enter the directory unproto resides: /user/mnejat/tools/unproto cc -c -g -I/user/server -I/user/server/src -I/usr/server/src -I/usr/include -I/ user/server/src -DHAVE_SETJMP_H -DHAVE_TZFILE_H -Dbsd signals.c "signals.c", line 55: syntax error at or near word "struct" "signals.c", line 56: syntax error at or near type word "char" "signals.c", line 57: syntax error at or near type word "int" "signals.c", line 59: syntax error at or near type word "void" "signals.c", line 60: syntax error at or near type word "void" "signals.c", line 61: syntax error at or near type word "int" "signals.c", line 121: syntax error at or near type word "int" "signals.c", line 128: sig undefined *** Error code 1 make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `signals.o' setup: error(s) during compilation; quitting ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have changed the DEFINE statements in src/Makefile to what the setup script suggests, but don't know what to do about the syntax errors. I don't have an ANSI C compiler and am using unproto program. Here is the output of uname -a command: flash (22) uname -a SunOS flash 4.1 5 sun4 Any help is greatly appriciated, --Mehregan Nejat From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 7 01:48:21 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA12578; Wed, 7 Jul 93 01:48:21 GMT Received: from walt.disney.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA12571; Tue, 6 Jul 93 18:48:14 PDT Received: from dalsdb (dalsdb.fa.disney.com) by walt.disney.com with SMTP id AA27153 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.3 for List-Managers@greatcircle.com); Tue, 6 Jul 1993 18:51:01 -0700 Received: from bimbette.wdp_animation by dalsdb with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #53) id m0oDOXe-000FckC; Tue, 6 Jul 93 18:43 PDT Message-Id: Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 18:43 PDT To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: cc'ing my postmaster From: sullivan@fa.disney.com Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Some sites cc my postmaster when they send bounce messages. Is there something I can put in the header to either keep this from happening or to redirect those cc's to me? Michael Sullivan sullivan@fa.disney.com Walt Disney Feature Animation +1 818 544 2683 (voice) Glendale, CA +1 818 544 4579 (fax) From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 7 20:20:45 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14800; Wed, 7 Jul 93 20:20:45 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca ([137.207.192.3]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14793; Wed, 7 Jul 93 13:20:35 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA02909; Wed, 7 Jul 93 16:22:37 EDT Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 15:52:35 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Message-Id: <930707.155235-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 6 Jul 1993 07:46:53 -0800 GMT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, 6 Jul 1993 07:46:53 -0800 GMT Mark A. Schaub said: >Anybody know of a listserver that runs under UNIX? Specifically, we have a >Data General 6240 running DG/UX 5.4.2 (it's AT&T compliant). In all fairness to the authors of the "Revised LISTSERV" resp. the "ListServer" applications, may I suggest that one use a generic like "Mailing List Manager"? The MLM generic seems to have been around for some time, and imho quite accurately describes what you are referring to here. Aside from the issue of fairness to the authors, there's the practical question of confusion amongst users of these MLMs. Anyone used to "Revised LISTSERV" for example can get rather upset when addressing an MLM with and getting unexpected responses... So for those currently using as address but not running "Revised LISTSERV", and for those thinking of using an MLM other than the "Revised LISTSERV" MLM, may I urge you to consider changeing that address to something more applicable to the MLM (to be) used? Regards, and thanks in advance. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 7 20:37:21 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14856; Wed, 7 Jul 93 20:37:21 GMT Received: from cs-mail.bu.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14849; Wed, 7 Jul 93 13:37:12 PDT Received: from CS.BU.EDU by cs-mail.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA25257; Wed, 7 Jul 93 16:39:53 -0400 From: tasos@cs-mail.bu.edu (Anastasios Kotsikonas) Received: by cs.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA12523; Wed, 7 Jul 93 16:39:52 -0400 Message-Id: <9307072039.AA12523@cs.bu.edu> Subject: Re: UNIX listserver To: Ophof@CS.UWindsor.Ca (F. Scott Ophof) Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:39:50 -0400 (EDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <930707.155235-0400@MReXX-0.18> from "F. Scott Ophof" at Jul 7, 93 03:52:35 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1408 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > > On Tue, 6 Jul 1993 07:46:53 -0800 GMT Mark A. Schaub said: > >Anybody know of a listserver that runs under UNIX? Specifically, we have a > >Data General 6240 running DG/UX 5.4.2 (it's AT&T compliant). > > In all fairness to the authors of the "Revised LISTSERV" resp. the > "ListServer" applications, may I suggest that one use a generic like > "Mailing List Manager"? The MLM generic seems to have been around > for some time, and imho quite accurately describes what you are > referring to here. > > Aside from the issue of fairness to the authors, there's the > practical question of confusion amongst users of these MLMs. > Anyone used to "Revised LISTSERV" for example can get rather upset > when addressing an MLM with and getting unexpected > responses... > So for those currently using as address but not > running "Revised LISTSERV", and for those thinking of using an MLM > other than the "Revised LISTSERV" MLM, may I urge you to consider > changeing that address to something more applicable to the MLM (to > be) used? This is becoming a bit annoying. This issue has been discussed before and in GREAT length on this list and most recently on comp.unix.sys5.r4 (a totally inappropriate newsgroup) and comp.mail.misc. Are we going to see the end of it ever, or will this message pop up every time one uses the string "listserv" in all of its forms? Tasos From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 7 20:46:13 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14887; Wed, 7 Jul 93 20:46:13 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14880; Wed, 7 Jul 93 13:46:03 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa00280; 7 Jul 93 16:40 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA02934; Wed, 7 Jul 93 16:43:03 EDT Message-Id: <9307072043.AA02934@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:43:03 EDT In-Reply-To: "F. Scott Ophof" "Re: UNIX listserver" (Jul 7, 3:52pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: "F. Scott Ophof" , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Mmdf-Warning: Parse error in original version of preceding line at Note2.nsf.gov Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Aside from the issue of fairness to the authors, there's the > practical question of confusion amongst users of these MLMs. > Anyone used to "Revised LISTSERV" for example can get rather upset > when addressing an MLM with and getting unexpected > responses... > So for those currently using as address but not > running "Revised LISTSERV", and for those thinking of using an MLM > other than the "Revised LISTSERV" MLM, may I urge you to consider > changeing that address to something more applicable to the MLM (to > be) used? Hmmm. I have over 2,000 users on a non-"Revised Listserv" called "listserv@nsf.gov", and nobody has ever complained. Could it be that this esoteric stuff is more interesting to developers than to users, who just might be smarter than we think? Could it be that users of "Revised LISTSERV" are fewer in number than the hordes of new users that are flooding the Internet? As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights go as far as to the name "listserver". "LISTSERV" is just "listserver" truncated to 8 characters to meet the needs of an e-mail system based on the concept of moving punched cards between hosts. If I change the name to "LISTMGR", how am I providing better service? I rather think I'll be confusing people. --Mike From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 8 05:32:56 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA15972; Thu, 8 Jul 93 05:32:56 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA15959; Wed, 7 Jul 93 22:32:45 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA08967; Thu, 8 Jul 93 01:34:49 EDT Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 23:02:18 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Message-Id: <930707.230218-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:43:03 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:43:03 EDT Michael H. Morse said: >Hmmm. I have over 2,000 users on a non-"Revised Listserv" called >"listserv@nsf.gov", and nobody has ever complained. I don't see any connection between no-complaints and your MLM-addr. And if the MLM you refer to as reachable at is not "Revised LISTSERV", then you've got your first comment right here. I'm requesting polite respect for useage elsewhere in the networks in re the word "LISTSERV". > Could it be that users of >"Revised LISTSERV" are fewer in number than the hordes of new >users that are flooding the Internet? I fail to see the relevance between number-of-users and politeness. >As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights >go as far as to the name "listserver". The name "ListServer" is in use by the MLM implemented by Tasos. I sincerely hope you respect his use of that word. >If I change the name to "LISTMGR", how am I providing better service? >I rather think I'll be confusing people. You would be trading a temporary and small confusion NOW against a massive confusion later on. Furthermore, many MLMs run on machines at academic sites. Academia exist to educate their students, not only in pure knowledge, but also the applied variety. And last but not least, to further their sense of fairness, ethics, and morals. If I'm not mistaken, these last three should also be integral to governmental institutes. Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 8 05:32:57 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA15974; Thu, 8 Jul 93 05:32:57 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA15960; Wed, 7 Jul 93 22:32:46 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA08973; Thu, 8 Jul 93 01:34:51 EDT Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 23:53:29 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Message-Id: <930707.235329-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:39:50 -0400 (EDT) Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:39:50 -0400 (EDT) Anastasios Kotsikonas said: >This is becoming a bit annoying. This issue has been discussed before and >in GREAT length on this list and most recently on comp.unix.sys5.r4 (a totally >inappropriate newsgroup) and comp.mail.misc. Are we going to see the end >of it ever, or will this message pop up every time one uses the string >"listserv" in all of its forms? I sincerely hope to see this issue end with polite respect given (in this case) to the authors and users of various MLMs. As to how the discussion got onto comp.unix.sys5.r4, I don't know. Possibly because someone wanted it there? Are you implying that that newsgroup is exempted from such issues? Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 8 20:27:42 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA18088; Thu, 8 Jul 93 20:27:42 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA18081; Thu, 8 Jul 93 13:27:33 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa09243; 8 Jul 93 7:51 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA03111; Thu, 8 Jul 93 07:55:00 EDT Message-Id: <9307081155.AA03111@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 07:54:59 EDT In-Reply-To: "F. Scott Ophof" "Re: UNIX listserver" (Jul 7, 11:02pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: "F. Scott Ophof" , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > >As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights > >go as far as to the name "listserver". > > The name "ListServer" is in use by the MLM implemented by Tasos. > I sincerely hope you respect his use of that word. Now I'm *really* confused. We *use* Tasos' implementation. So, does that mean I have the right (and meet your standards of politeness) to use the name "listserver"??? If so, then I *must* use the address "listserv" as well. You see, we have a Unix host on the BITNET, and some BITNET sites have 8-character restrictions on addresses. Now what do you suggest? --Mike From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 8 20:49:54 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA18132; Thu, 8 Jul 93 20:49:54 GMT Received: from d.ecc.engr.uky.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA18124; Thu, 8 Jul 93 13:49:45 PDT Received: from s.ecc.engr.uky.edu by d.ecc.engr.uky.edu (5.59/25-eef) id AA06340; Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:16:10 EDT Received: by s.ecc.engr.uky.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA07663; Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:29:54 EDT Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:29:54 EDT From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) Message-Id: <9307082029.AA07663@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >> >As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights >> >go as far as to the name "listserver". >> >> The name "ListServer" is in use by the MLM implemented by Tasos. >> I sincerely hope you respect his use of that word. > >Now I'm *really* confused. We *use* Tasos' implementation. So, does >that mean I have the right (and meet your standards of politeness) to >use the name "listserver"??? If so, then I *must* use the address >"listserv" as well. You see, we have a Unix host on the BITNET, and >some BITNET sites have 8-character restrictions on addresses. Now >what do you suggest? Quite frankly, I suggest that we find something more meaningful to discuss. We can all find naming clashes; look at the current flame- war in cracking/phreaking circles over some 15-year-old's appropria- tion of the name "Legion of Doom." How many of us call our HP-UX systems "Unix"? How about those Macs running A/UX? Are they "Unix"? PRIMIX? Solaris? HCX/UX? On and on and on......*sigh*...........we could go on all summer long with this stuff. I've seen this particular flamewar crop up on BITNET lists (such as LSTOWN-L and NODEINFO), Usenet newsgroups, and (most recently) here on List-Managers. All the world is not Eric Thomas' Revised LISTSERV, nor is it Tasos' implementation. Gee, what if I run Majordomo and call it something like "mailserv@engr.uky.edu"? What if I write an exact Unix clone of LISTSERV? Arrgh..... --Wes From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 9 01:08:24 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19074; Fri, 9 Jul 93 01:08:24 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19067; Thu, 8 Jul 93 18:08:13 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA24015; Thu, 8 Jul 93 21:09:52 EDT Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 18:46:59 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Message-Id: <930708.184659-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:29:54 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:29:54 EDT Wes Morgan said: >On Thu, 8 Jul 1993 07:54:59 EDT Michael H. Morse said: >>Scott Ophof said: >>> (I think) Michael H. Morse said: >>> >As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights >>> >go as far as to the name "listserver". >>> The name "ListServer" is in use by the MLM implemented by Tasos. >>> I sincerely hope you respect his use of that word. >>Now I'm *really* confused. We *use* Tasos' implementation. So, does >>that mean I have the right (and meet your standards of politeness) to >>use the name "listserver"??? If so, then I *must* use the address >>"listserv" as well. You see, we have a Unix host on the BITNET, and >>some BITNET sites have 8-character restrictions on addresses. Now >>what do you suggest? I think it would be fair to say that it would be nice to have the address reflect which MLM is addressed, except where users could get confused by a different behaviour than the address would imply. So if it's a "ListServer" running on a BITnet node, I personally would go for something like (maybe) "L-SERVER" to ensure users wouldn't expect a "Revised LISTSERV". >How many of us call our HP-UX systems "Unix"? How about those Macs >running A/UX? Are they "Unix"? PRIMIX? Solaris? HCX/UX? On and Ouch... Yes, this is indeed a sore point too; they're all based on the "Unix" concept, but different enough to confuse the users... Gee, what if I run Majordomo and call it something >like "mailserv@engr.uky.edu"? If there's no MLM using "MailServ" as product name, then why not? Though in the interest of the users, it wouldn't really be such a good idea, right? >What if I write an exact Unix clone of LISTSERV? Arrgh..... Which users & maintainers etc. couldn't distinguish from "Revised LISTSERV" and interfacing with the other "Revised LISTSERV"s exactly as they do with each other? Of course you wouldn't use "Revised LISTSERV" code, or use "LISTSERV" as product name... :-) I would very much applaud such a project, and point out that CREN currently is engaged in just such a project! And I'd sincerely hope Eric wouldn't grumble at -type addresses being used. If I'm not mistaken, Tasos' intention was that "ListServer" be indistinguishable from "Revised LISTSERV" as to the common subset of functionality and user-interface. Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 9 01:27:50 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19101; Fri, 9 Jul 93 01:27:50 GMT Received: from albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19094; Thu, 8 Jul 93 18:27:42 PDT Received: from nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu by albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) with SMTP id ; Thu, 8 Jul 93 21:29:56 -0400 Received: by nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu (15.11/4.0) id ; Thu, 8 Jul 93 21:29:52 edt Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 21:29:52 edt From: tower@gnu.ai.mit.edu Message-Id: <9307090129.AA24464@nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: Ophof@cs.uwindsor.ca Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <930708.184659-0400@MReXX-0.18> "Ophof@cs.uwindsor.ca" Reply-To: tower@prep.ai.mit.edu Organization: Project GNU, Free Software Foundation, 675 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139-3309, USA +1 (617) 876-3296 Home: 36 Porter Street, Somerville, MA 02143, USA +1 (617) 623-7739 Subject: UNIX listserver Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 18:46:59 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Sender: List-Managers-Owner@greatcircle.com Precedence: bulk On Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:29:54 EDT Wes Morgan said: >On Thu, 8 Jul 1993 07:54:59 EDT Michael H. Morse said: >>Scott Ophof said: >>> (I think) Michael H. Morse said: >>> >As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights >>> >go as far as to the name "listserver". >>> The name "ListServer" is in use by the MLM implemented by Tasos. >>> I sincerely hope you respect his use of that word. >>Now I'm *really* confused. We *use* Tasos' implementation. So, does >>that mean I have the right (and meet your standards of politeness) to >>use the name "listserver"??? If so, then I *must* use the address >>"listserv" as well. You see, we have a Unix host on the BITNET, and >>some BITNET sites have 8-character restrictions on addresses. Now >>what do you suggest? I think it would be fair to say that it would be nice to have the address reflect which MLM is addressed, except where users could get confused by a different behaviour than the address would imply. So if it's a "ListServer" running on a BITnet node, I personally would go for something like (maybe) "L-SERVER" to ensure users wouldn't expect a "Revised LISTSERV". Being more interested in serving users, I would have all known MLM addresses on my host pointing at whichever MLM program I was using. Users don't like having programmers and system administrators require them to know many many different ways of doing one thing. And I agree with the users. Yes, a user who contacts an MLM he doesn't know, at the "name/address" of one he does know will be a little confused, but at least he'll get enough information to go forward, rather then a "User Unknown..." thanx -len Member, League for Programming Freedom. Ask: lpf@uunet.uu.net From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 9 05:05:17 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19432; Fri, 9 Jul 93 05:05:17 GMT Received: from uu7.psi.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19422; Thu, 8 Jul 93 22:05:10 PDT Received: by uu7.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA17805 for ; Fri, 9 Jul 93 00:52:25 -0400 Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 22:41:27 GMT From: rick@ssg.com (Rick Emerson) Received: by ssg.com (4.0/3.2.083191-System Support Group) id AA03862; Thu, 8 Jul 93 22:41:27 GMT Message-Id: <9307082241.AA03862@ssg.com> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: UNIX listserver In-Reply-To: <9307081155.AA03111@z.nsf.gov> References: <9307081155.AA03111@z.nsf.gov> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk "Michael H. Morse" writes: > > >As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights > > >go as far as to the name "listserver". > > > > The name "ListServer" is in use by the MLM implemented by Tasos. > > I sincerely hope you respect his use of that word. > > Now I'm *really* confused. We *use* Tasos' implementation. So, does > that mean I have the right (and meet your standards of politeness) to > use the name "listserver"??? If so, then I *must* use the address > "listserv" as well. You see, we have a Unix host on the BITNET, and > some BITNET sites have 8-character restrictions on addresses. Now > what do you suggest? > > --Mike What not call the darn thing a "whizbang" and be done with it. It has eight letters and looks nothing like the name someone seems to feel he holds world rights to. The noise level on this list has now managed to exceed 100%. I'm outta here! Rick | Richard B. Emerson | Replies may be sent to: | | System Support Group | rick@ssg.com | | 940 Delaware Avenue |-------------------------------------------------+ | Lansdale, PA 19446 USA | "Life is just a tire swing..." | | Voice: 215.855.1607 | -- Jimmy Buffett | From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 9 09:55:12 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20314; Fri, 9 Jul 93 09:55:12 GMT Received: from castor.cc.utu.fi by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20305; Fri, 9 Jul 93 02:55:02 PDT Received: by utu.fi id <30487-5>; Fri, 9 Jul 1993 12:57:39 +0300 Subject: Re: UNIX listserver From: Matti Aarnio To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 12:57:38 +0300 In-Reply-To: <9307090810.AA19938@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> from "List-Managers-Digest-Owner@GreatCircle.COM" at Jul 9, 93 11:10:05 am Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-Length: 3103 Message-Id: <93Jul9.125739eet_dst.30487-5@utu.fi> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >From: "F. Scott Ophof" > On Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:29:54 EDT Wes Morgan said: > >What if I write an exact Unix clone of LISTSERV? Arrgh..... > > Which users & maintainers etc. couldn't distinguish from "Revised > LISTSERV" and interfacing with the other "Revised LISTSERV"s exactly > as they do with each other? Of course you wouldn't use "Revised > LISTSERV" code, or use "LISTSERV" as product name... :-) > I would very much applaud such a project, and point out that CREN > currently is engaged in just such a project! And I'd sincerely hope > Eric wouldn't grumble at -type addresses being used. No, he won't, however he does expect that such LISTSERVers do act like Revised LISTSERVs, and one BIG snafu in it is R-LISTSERV's DISTRIBUTE-protocol, which is documented in RFC 1429. (Yes, it really looks alike MVS JCL, so what ?) Actually it is a sort of SMTP inside the mail body. R-LISTSERVs just handle it better. The protocol is easy to implement, but how do you find the (near-) optimal list of peers willing to run it ? R-LISTSERVs do it by centralized control, and monthly distributed routing database. (They are run in the BITNET after all..) A month or two ago Eric made a contract with EARN to develope a VMS version of the R-LISTSERV. VMS because VMS Pascal is nearest to the PASCAL-VS, that most of the R-LISTSERV is written today. I assume some of you are going to IETF at Amsterdam, could we try to find a BOF for "Bulk-MXes" -- for a way to discover who are willing to run bulk deliveries around the network. Hmm.. Consider scenario: Host-A(Finland) a list of 1000 recipients of which 20 in Finland. Now the usual thing is to start spiffing MX and A questions around the network, and then deliver mail to each and all of them via individual connections, unless by some miracle multiple recipients are at the same host/mx, or then by getting into some arrangement with some sites abroad, and define static routes to large areas of domain space via those.. What I wish for is a simple scheme of finding willing Bulk-delivery servers, much like R-LISTSERVs. In scenario I usually consider, next logical hop is in Sweden, which then splits to Central Europe (say, Paris, Amsterdam, CERN, Bonn -- corners of EBONE), and USA+Asia. Again, next step would go to - say USA (EDU that is): How to locate regionals onto which to push the mail, or just use plain ordinary MXes ? If the scheme is multi-level, how does one avoid unnecessary traversal to higher-levels ? How would such resource finding operate ? Especially as it would be good to assume that people at networks know their connection routes, and are thus better positioned to place such routing information into the DNS. > If I'm not mistaken, Tasos' intention was that "ListServer" be > indistinguishable from "Revised LISTSERV" as to the common subset > of functionality and user-interface. Well, let commands be the same, and their behaviour, but it can still present a bit different outlook ;) > Regards. > $$\ /Matti Aarnio From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 10 01:34:17 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA21807; Sat, 10 Jul 93 01:34:17 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA21800; Fri, 9 Jul 93 18:33:52 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA11233; Fri, 9 Jul 93 21:35:51 EDT Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 16:04:10 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Message-Id: <930709.160410-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: Cc: Eric Thomas In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:43:03 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:43:03 EDT Michael H. Morse said on List-Managers: >Scott Ophof said: >> Aside from the issue of fairness to the authors, there's the >> practical question of confusion amongst users of these MLMs. >> Anyone used to "Revised LISTSERV" for example can get rather upset >> when addressing an MLM with and getting unexpected >> responses... >Hmmm. I have over 2,000 users on a non-"Revised Listserv" called >"listserv@nsf.gov", and nobody has ever complained. Could it be that >this esoteric stuff is more interesting to developers than to users, >who just might be smarter than we think? Could it be that users of >"Revised LISTSERV" are fewer in number than the hordes of new >users that are flooding the Internet? I don't know how large those "hordes" are, and would be interested in at least a fair guesstimate. There is less guessing in the following extract from private mail from Eric Thomas, where he suggests I point out to Michael a few things. I chose to interpret that as meaning posting it was OK. Start-of-quote: || [..] that he should refrain from talking about things he doesn't || know about, such as the reason why LISTSERV is called LISTSERV and || not something else, or the amount of users it has. LISTSERV's || membership exceeded 1,000,000 in June and it delivers 2-6 million || messages every day. || I waste several hours every month due to people who confuse 'unix || listserv' and LISTSERV. I even get bug reports for 'unix listserv'. || The confusion goes both ways, and some users ask why the command to || subscribe to LISTSERV lists is not 'add' like with their local unix || list server. The IETF thinks it is a very serious problem and wants || to standardize the syntax. You may quote as little or as much as || you want from this message. End-of-quote. I'd like to add that there are something like 2500-3000 lists registered with "Revised LISTSERV". As to those bug reports and confusion items Eric mentions, if I were in his position I'd forward them straight to List-Managers, ListNix, and other relevant lists/groups for resolving and CONTINUE to do so till fair action was taken. But I'm not in his position, so all I can do is what I'm doing now. Aside from all else, user-confusion should be minimised, and anyone with a heart for other network users would want to do so as soon as possible, right? Can anyone come up with figures on how many people are subscribed to the non-"Revised LISTSERV" MLMs? Maybe we can then get some idea of how many (and which) users would have to be re-educated IF various MLM authors and people running MLMs were to consider making changes. Regards, and thanks in advance. $$\ F. Scott Ophof From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 10 02:47:16 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22549; Sat, 10 Jul 93 08:31:50 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22541; Sat, 10 Jul 93 01:31:42 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA16339; Sat, 10 Jul 93 04:33:54 EDT Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1993 02:02:13 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: How to recognize mail from an MLM Message-Id: <930710.020213-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Which single header in an email item consistently informs the reader (or software) that the item is from a mailing list, and lists the address (and name) of that mailing list? And in such a way that it is clearly NOT mail from a *person*. In the BITnet world the "Sender:" header was used for this purpose, which doesn't seem to be correct in the Internet world... BTW, I get confused by terminology like "mirrors", "exploders", etc., so if you include such, an explanation would be greatly appreciated (in plain English please?). Regards, and thanks in advance. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 10 02:49:51 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22556; Sat, 10 Jul 93 08:31:57 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22542; Sat, 10 Jul 93 01:31:44 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA16345; Sat, 10 Jul 93 04:33:56 EDT Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1993 02:48:15 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: A step forward (was Re: UNIX listserver) Message-Id: <930710.024815-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 9 Jul 1993 12:57:38 +0300 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, 9 Jul 1993 12:57:38 +0300 Matti Aarnio said: >>From: "F. Scott Ophof" >> And I'd sincerely hope >> Eric wouldn't grumble at -type addresses being used. > No, he won't, however he does expect that such LISTSERVers do act >like Revised LISTSERVs, and one BIG snafu in it is R-LISTSERV's >DISTRIBUTE-protocol, which is documented in RFC 1429. (Yes, it really >looks alike MVS JCL, so what ?) >Actually it is a sort of SMTP inside the mail body. R-LISTSERVs just >handle it better. Yes, but that's not much of a recommendation... (grin) I don't want to flame, but imho it's also time a better Mail Transport Protocol were developed than SMTP. Heck, maybe X.400 *is* the way to go? Forget about the ridiculous user-addressing syntax; it clearly never was meant to be human-readable, nor will it ever be. Besides, the same can be said for the DNS format. An interface between machine- readable addrs and something we humans can read is needed anyway. But that's fodder for another list/group. > The protocol is easy to implement, but how do you find the (near-) >optimal list of peers willing to run it ? R-LISTSERVs do it by >centralized control, and monthly distributed routing database. >(They are run in the BITNET after all..) Get together with the relevant BITnet people? They are probably wrestling with the same problem for when "Revised LISTSERV" comes to the Internet. Your idea of getting together in Amsterdam sounds great! Wish I could be there, listening to great minds at work. (sigh) >Hmm.. Consider scenario: Yikes! Out of my league. *Gone*! :-) >> If I'm not mistaken, Tasos' intention was that "ListServer" be >> indistinguishable from "Revised LISTSERV" as to the common subset >> of functionality and user-interface. > Well, let commands be the same, and their behaviour, but it can >still present a bit different outlook ;) Erm.. Please not if it confuses the users. And please note that it certainly is time we all started thinking of users possibly having differing mindsets. IMHO we should go one of the following routes: 1: Make the current user-interface FULLY understandable by ANY human, be heesh a computer-user or not. 2: Ensure that the current interface is purely consistent for machine-readability, and implement a user-interface ON TOP of it, this last interface to be installed on the user side (a la client-server model), completely adapted to the user and the machine it's running on. If we do (1), then we can be sure to run into trouble; there is NO way a command set can be devised that is useable by ALL people on Earth with the SAME ease-of-understanding. And I really don't think it's fair to force English on non-English speakers. This leaves route (2), which opens up the possibility of tailoring that interface to each INDIVIDUAL users' wishes/mindset. My point here is simply to indicate that we ARE at this milestone, and it's nearing decision-time... Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 10 15:02:19 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23157; Sat, 10 Jul 93 15:02:19 GMT Received: from grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23150; Sat, 10 Jul 93 08:02:12 PDT Received: from localhost (wolf@localhost) by grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr (8.1C/8.1) id RAA19033; Sat, 10 Jul 1993 17:04:39 +0200 From: Christophe Wolfhugel Message-Id: <199307101504.RAA19033@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr> Subject: RFC-822 parser in Perl ? To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1993 17:04:38 +0100 (MEST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 464 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Is there a real RFC-822 parser out there, by real I mean a parser which would respect the syntax, and particularly quoted strings and pairs. I mean: "stupid (yeah) user"@relay.host (comment) should give local part = "stupid (yeah) user" host = relay.host comment = com,ment Yeah those addresses you only see twice in your life (generally really close from an X.400 gateway :)). -- Christophe Wolfhugel | Email: Christophe.Wolfhugel@grasp.insa-lyon.fr From List-Managers-Owner Sun Jul 11 22:22:36 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA25451; Sun, 11 Jul 93 22:22:36 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca ([137.207.192.3]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA25444; Sun, 11 Jul 93 15:22:26 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA08303; Sun, 11 Jul 93 18:23:59 EDT Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1993 13:49:22 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Message-Id: <930711.134922-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: Cc: Cc: Cc: In-Reply-To: Your message of 10 Jul 1993 14:22:20 GMT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 10 Jul 1993 14:22:20 GMT Eric Thomas said on LSTSRV-L: >On Sat, 10 Jul 1993 02:02:13 -0400 "F. Scott Ophof" >said: >>Which single header in an email item consistently informs the reader (or >>software) that the item is from a mailing list, and lists the address >>(and name) of that mailing list? And in such a way that it is clearly >>NOT mail from a *person*. >In the general case, none. Though I hoped otherwise, I'm not surprised to see this answer. >Using the 'Sender:' is correct in both worlds, the religious argument is >about what to put in that field and what to do to the rest of the header. >IETF lists come with a 'Sender:' field, so don't let anyone convince you >that this field cannot be used by mailing lists. OK, it may be USED by mailing lists, but (according to RFC822) not for the PURPOSE for which "Revised LISTSERV" uses it. But if Internet mail contains addresses like <...-request@...> or in the "Sender:" header to indicate the item comes from an MLM, that to me doesn't ensure that those addresses will consistently reflect the relevant mailing list. In other words, if the "Sender:"-addr is: or will the following ALWAYS be true? or could it also be: or worse yet: And besides and <..-REQUEST@..>, are there any other such words that have the same ("guaranteed") behaviour? Recently I've seen items from some "Revised LISTSERV"s which have "X-List:" headers, and that header-line has up to now consistently displayed the relevant and correct list-address itself. Do I sense an intention to use (and advertise using) that header for that SINGLE purpose? If so, how does one ensure that that header will only be used for THAT purpose? Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 12 10:10:18 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA26500; Mon, 12 Jul 93 10:10:18 GMT Received: from sally.informatik.rwth-aachen.de ([137.226.112.172]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA26491; Mon, 12 Jul 93 03:09:54 PDT Received: from hathi (hathi.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE) by sally.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (4.1/sally-2) id AA20976; Mon, 12 Jul 93 12:12:26 +0200 Received: by hathi (4.1/POOL.3) id AA11460; Mon, 12 Jul 93 12:12:34 +0200 Message-Id: <9307121012.AA11460@hathi> From: berg@pool.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (Stephen R. van den Berg) Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:12:31 +0200 In-Reply-To: "F. Scott Ophof"'s message as of 1993 Jul 10 Sat 2:02. <930710.020213-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk "F. Scott Ophof" wrote: >Which single header in an email item consistently informs the reader >(or software) that the item is from a mailing list, > And in such a way that it >is clearly NOT mail from a *person*. The answer to this question is easy: if there is a field in the header that says: Precendence: list then it is from a mailinglist, and NEVER from a person. There is a small catch here: not all lists set this field correctly (yet). > and lists the >address (and name) of that mailing list? Well, this one is not so easy. I can only vouch for "procmail"-managed mailinglists which contain: Resent-From: Resent-Sender: X-Mailing-List: ... With the exception that Resent-From: will only be added if it wasn't already on the incoming mail. -- Sincerely, berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless). berg@physik.tu-muenchen.de I've never been superstitious! Knock on wood. From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 12 13:01:36 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA26751; Mon, 12 Jul 93 13:01:36 GMT Received: from mailman.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA26744; Mon, 12 Jul 93 06:01:27 PDT Received: from localhost by mailman.nsf.gov with SMTP id AA19382 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Mon, 12 Jul 1993 09:04:38 -0400 Message-Id: <199307121304.AA19382@mailman.nsf.gov> To: "F. Scott Ophof" From: "Ravin Asar" Cc: LSTSRV-L@UGA.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@CS.UTexas.edu, ListNix@Grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 11 Jul 93 13:49:22 -0400. <930711.134922-0400@MReXX-0.18> Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 09:04:37 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The message I received from "F. Scott Ophof" said: ... > > But if Internet mail contains addresses like <...-request@...> or > in the "Sender:" header to indicate the item comes > from an MLM, that to me doesn't ensure that those addresses will > consistently reflect the relevant mailing list. In other words, if > the "Sender:"-addr is: > or > will the following ALWAYS be true? > > or could it also be: > > or worse yet: > > > And besides and <..-REQUEST@..>, are there any other > such words that have the same ("guaranteed") behaviour? I see a number of people have responded to your question, and most seem to be on the mark. However (and you probably know this already) the use of prefixes "owner-" or suffix "-request" are really implementation-dependant. I know that the mail software I run (sendmail) looks for and "carbon-copies" to an "owner-" address when bouncing list-related mail. Our older machine which ran MMDF looked for a "-request" address instead. I would imagine that list maintainers would use a combination of "From:", "Reply-To:" and "Errors-To:" headers to ensure that postings to the list are replyable in a consistent manner. That way the burden of reliability rests with the maintainer rather than a list user. > > Recently I've seen items from some "Revised LISTSERV"s which have > "X-List:" headers, and that header-line has up to now consistently > displayed the relevant and correct list-address itself. > Do I sense an intention to use (and advertise using) that header for > that SINGLE purpose? If so, how does one ensure that that header > will only be used for THAT purpose? I've paraphrased a relevant portion of RFC 822 which explains the use of "X-" prefixed fields. . 4.7.4. EXTENSION-FIELD . . A limited number of common fields have been defined in . this document. As network mail requirements dictate, addi- . tional fields may be standardized. To provide user-defined . fields with a measure of safety, in name selection, such . extension-fields will never have names that begin with the . string "X-". . . Names of Extension-fields are registered with the Network . Information Center, SRI International, Menlo Park, California. . . . 4.7.5. USER-DEFINED-FIELD . . Individual users of network mail are free to define and . use additional header fields. Such fields must have names . which are not already used in the current specification or in . any definitions of extension-fields, and the overall syntax of . these user-defined-fields must conform to this specification's . rules for delimiting and folding fields. Due to the . extension-field publishing process, the name of a user- . defined-field may be pre-empted . . Note: The prefatory string "X-" will never be used in the . names of Extension-fields. This provides user-defined . fields with a protected set of names. I've seen various forms of "X-" addresses, none of which are really "standard" (like X-List and X-Mailing-List). They may be in (very) common use, but they don't appear to be guaranteed to exist in the future. > > Regards. > $$\ -Ravin __________________________________________________________________ Ravin Asar | National Science Foundation | 1800 G St. NW #440 | Washington, DC 20550 Official: postmaster@nsf.gov | Phone: (202) 357-5934 Personal: rasar@nsf.gov | Fax: (202) 357-7663 __________________________________|_______________________________ IMHO From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 12 23:06:16 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27731; Mon, 12 Jul 93 23:06:16 GMT Received: from rata.vuw.ac.nz by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27724; Mon, 12 Jul 93 16:05:56 PDT Received: by rata.vuw.ac.nz id AA05591 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for List-Managers@greatcircle.com); Tue, 13 Jul 1993 11:08:06 +1200 Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 11:08:06 +1200 Message-Id: <199307122308.AA05591@rata.vuw.ac.nz> From: Tony Martindale To: berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Stephen R. van den Berg's message of Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:12:31 +0200 <9307121012.AA11460@hathi> Subject: How to recognize mail from an MLM Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk From: berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Stephen R. van den Berg) Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:12:31 +0200 "F. Scott Ophof" wrote: >Which single header in an email item consistently informs the reader >(or software) that the item is from a mailing list, > And in such a way that it >is clearly NOT mail from a *person*. The answer to this question is easy: if there is a field in the header that says: Precendence: list then it is from a mailinglist, and NEVER from a person. Say what? Where is this defined as a standard (proposed, de facto or otherwise)? This is not in RFC 822 or 1123, I'm amazed that you can be so definite. Overloading the "Precendence" field with additional meaning does not strike me as the way to go about things. The Extension-Field or User-Defined-Field is the better approach IMHO. There is a small catch here: not all lists set this field correctly (yet). There is a bigger catch: not all mailers are configured to do sensible things with this field. At best the Precendence field is a UNIXism/sendmailism. There have been good postings in the past to List-Mangagers about the Precendence field, so I won't rave. I gather, from this list, that there are a number of groups/committees looking at standards/RFC's for mailing list management. Can anyone give a report on where the current thinking is at regarding this and other issues? --- Tony Martindale Computing Services Centre, phone: +64 4 495 5051 Victoria University of Wellington, fax: +64 4 471 5386 P.O. Box 600, Wellington, NEW ZEALAND. From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 00:14:13 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27843; Tue, 13 Jul 93 00:14:13 GMT Received: from cruskit.aarnet.edu.au by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27836; Mon, 12 Jul 93 17:13:56 PDT Received: from localhost.aarnet.edu.au by cruskit.aarnet.edu.au with SMTP id AA12068 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 13 Jul 1993 10:15:48 +1000 From: Andy Linton To: Tony Martindale Cc: berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM X-Organization: AARNet, GPO Box 1142, Canberra, ACT 2601, AUSTRALIA X-Phone: +61 6 249 2874 Precendence: list Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 10:15:45 +1000 Message-Id: <12067.742522545@cruskit.aarnet.edu.au> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In your message dated Tue, 13 Jul 1993 11:08:06 +1200, you write: > > From: berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Stephen R. van den Berg) > Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:12:31 +0200 > > "F. Scott Ophof" wrote: > >Which single header in an email item consistently informs the reader > >(or software) that the item is from a mailing list, > > And in such a way that it > >is clearly NOT mail from a *person*. > > The answer to this question is easy: if there is a field in the header that > says: > Precendence: list > > then it is from a mailinglist, and NEVER from a person. > > Say what? Where is this defined as a standard (proposed, de facto or > otherwise)? This is not in RFC 822 or 1123, I'm amazed that you can > be so definite. Overloading the "Precendence" field with additional > meaning does not strike me as the way to go about things. The > Extension-Field or User-Defined-Field is the better approach IMHO. > I agree with Tony - there's no absolutes here at all. We need a set of standard headers for lists and for SMTP mail details of envelope construction. There isn't such a standard yet and to go around saying that that there is or wishing that a particular header was part of a standard doesn't help. From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 00:24:59 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27866; Tue, 13 Jul 93 00:24:59 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27859; Mon, 12 Jul 93 17:24:47 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA04125; Mon, 12 Jul 93 20:25:57 EDT Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 16:44:49 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Message-Id: <930712.164449-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: To: Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Up to now I've only seen replies which come down to this: There's no SINGLE header which is used by ALL MLMs to inform the reader that the item is from "Name of list ". Note that the addr format (FQDN, BITnet addr, bang-type, X.400, or whatever) is irrelevant. If addresses like , , or (gasp!) (as a/the MLM at GreatCircle.com does) are indeed implementation-dependant, then they too are effectively not too useful as a general case. I can accept that MLMs came into general use after standards like RFC822 were proposed, with those standards not taking MLMs into consideration. But after all these years, hasn't *any* standard been proposed and rammed through *YET*?? To clarify (just in case), I'm NOT interested in the MLM-side of the matter, only that the READER (human/software) can identify without ambiguity the ==> LIST-ADDRESS <== (plus optionally its name). For some time I thought that "Newsgroups: groupname[s]" meant "you are reading an item that was posted as-is to 'groupname[s]'". But now I see that people use that header to indicate that they copied the item from 'groupname[s]', quote (parts of) it, and send it off via email as private replies. So using that header as an analogy/example of what I mean is out... Most (not all) list hosted by a "Revised LISTSERV" have both the "Sender:" and "Reply-To:" set to the list-address, thus making identification (and replying) easy. The exception is when list-owner/subscribers have indicated that a "Reply-To:" set by the poster should be respected (or even always the poster's addr). Even in that case the address in the (in the formal sense mis-used) "Sender:" header is a clear indicator for the reader/software. Does anyone have any info on RFCs which have proposed a header for what I'm asking? If there ain't none, then I'd like to propose that: Listname: Name of List be used for this purpose, and for no other purpose. And that this header and its purpose be registered, etc. I don't care whether it would be "Listname:" or "List-Name:", but not some "X-whatever:", please. Ie. I retract my proposal to use "X-List:". On Mon, 12 Jul 93 09:04:37 EDT Ravin Asar said on List-Manager: >... >I would imagine that list maintainers would use a combination of >"From:", "Reply-To:" and "Errors-To:" headers to ensure that postings >to the list are replyable in a consistent manner. That way the burden >of reliability rests with the maintainer rather than a list user. You sent me three items (carbon-copy bodies, two private, one to List-Managers), none of which had a header identifying the exact list-address to reply to. On Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:12:31 +0200 Stephen R. van den Berg said on List-Managers: ..["Precendence: list" means it's from A list].. This still does not identify the , as you call it (clearest definition I've seen yet btw!). To need TWO headers for one piece of data seems imho overkill. Or is: Precendence: group a valid form to indicate it's a newsgroup item? Are there other values which are valid here? On 11 Jul 1993 22:42:16 GMT Eric Thomas said on LSTSRV-L: >On Sun, 11 Jul 1993 13:49:22 -0400 F. Scott Ophof said: >>Recently I've seen items from some "Revised LISTSERV"s which have >>"X-List:" headers, and that header-line has up to now consistently >>displayed the relevant and correct list-address itself. >These are not from LISTSERV. At any rate I don't think this is a good >solution, one has to think of mail sent to multiple lists, resent from >list X to list Y, and so on. Hmm.. I was quite sure I saw them (Don't know where, Don't know when".. as the song goes). But I'll snag a couple, double-check, and report back. Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 02:36:51 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28117; Tue, 13 Jul 93 02:36:51 GMT Received: from mailman.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28110; Mon, 12 Jul 93 19:36:39 PDT Received: from localhost by mailman.nsf.gov with SMTP id AA12321 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Mon, 12 Jul 1993 22:40:52 -0400 Message-Id: <199307130240.AA12321@mailman.nsf.gov> To: "F. Scott Ophof" From: "Ravin Asar" Cc: LSTSRV-L@UGA.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@CS.UTexas.edu, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@Grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, Unix-Listserv@stormking.com Reply-To: Come on MLMs - fill this in Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 12 Jul 93 16:44:49 -0400. <930712.164449-0400@MReXX-0.18> Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 22:40:52 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The message I received from "F. Scott Ophof" said: ... > If addresses like , , or > (gasp!) (as a/the MLM at GreatCircle.com does) > are indeed implementation-dependant, then they too are effectively > not too useful as a general case. It occurred to me that none of the above should really be used as indicators of MLM-generated mail for the simple reason that they occur on the RHS of a field name. > > I can accept that MLMs came into general use after standards like > RFC822 were proposed, with those standards not taking MLMs into > consideration. But after all these years, hasn't *any* standard > been proposed and rammed through *YET*?? > > If there ain't none, then I'd like to propose that: > Listname: Name of List > be used for this purpose, and for no other purpose. And that this > header and its purpose be registered, etc. Yes, that does seem sensible to have, especially considering that X-List* fields have been floating around for a while now, waiting to be "adopted". A small semantic point here, though: just as one doesn't use a "Sendername:", "Subjectmatter:" or a "Fromname:" field, it would appear to be more appropriate and consistent (imho) to name the field "List:". > I don't care whether it would be "Listname:" or "List-Name:", but > not some "X-whatever:", please. Ie. I retract my proposal to use > "X-List:". > I wonder if the people who started using the X-List* fields (I'm a little short on history here) have anything in the works for formalizing a definitive field now. The SRI-NIC was listed in RFC822 as the keeper of registered field names. This might now be a function of rs.internic.net. > > Or is: > Precendence: group > a valid form to indicate it's a newsgroup item? Are there other > values which are valid here? > "Precedence:" as I know it is a definite sendmail-ism, and is site-dependant. The RHS of this field can be any text defined by the email administrator, and is translated by sendmail into a number (via the config file). This is then used by sendmail to determine whether to favor or penalize the delivery of this message relative to the current system load. I most certainly wouldn't rely on it as an indicator of MLM-generated mail. > > On 11 Jul 1993 22:42:16 GMT Eric Thomas said on LSTSRV-L: > >On Sun, 11 Jul 1993 13:49:22 -0400 F. Scott Ophof said: > >>Recently I've seen items from some "Revised LISTSERV"s which have > >>"X-List:" headers, and that header-line has up to now consistently > >>displayed the relevant and correct list-address itself. > >These are not from LISTSERV. At any rate I don't think this is a good > >solution, one has to think of mail sent to multiple lists, resent from > >list X to list Y, and so on. Wouldn't mail sent to multiple lists be taken care of by their respective MLMs ? And if a message was resent from list X to list Y, wouldn't it now be deemed to originate from list Y's MLM (and contain headers appropriate to list Y) ?.... just asking. The history of the message could, of course, be preserved through the use of the "Resent-" prefix defined in RFC822 (Section 4.2). ... > Regards. > $$\ __________________________________________________________________ Ravin Asar | National Science Foundation System Manager: Unix Systems | 1800 G St. NW #440 | Washington, DC 20550 Official: postmaster@nsf.gov | Phone: (202) 357-5934 Personal: rasar@nsf.gov | Fax: (202) 357-7663 __________________________________|_______________________________ As always, IMHO. From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 04:51:47 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28318; Tue, 13 Jul 93 04:51:47 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28311; Mon, 12 Jul 93 21:51:40 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA07172; Tue, 13 Jul 93 00:53:28 EDT Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 21:36:01 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Message-Id: <930712.213601-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 13 Jul 1993 10:15:45 +1000 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, 13 Jul 1993 10:15:45 +1000 Andy Linton said: >In your message dated Tue, 13 Jul 1993 11:08:06 +1200, you write: ^^^^ ^^^ Does that refer to Tony Martindale? >> From: berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Stephen R. van den Berg) >> The answer to this question is easy: if there is a field in the header that >> says: >> Precendence: list ^ How did that "n" creep in there? Typo? Or is my dictionary so old that it doesn't list anything related to this word? Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 07:27:27 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28596; Tue, 13 Jul 93 07:27:27 GMT Received: from cruskit.aarnet.edu.au by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28589; Tue, 13 Jul 93 00:26:02 PDT Received: from localhost.aarnet.edu.au by cruskit.aarnet.edu.au with SMTP id AA12617 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 13 Jul 1993 17:28:05 +1000 From: Andy Linton To: "F. Scott Ophof" Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM X-Organization: AARNet, GPO Box 1142, Canberra, ACT 2601, AUSTRALIA X-Phone: +61 6 249 2874 Precendence: list Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 17:28:04 +1000 Message-Id: <12616.742548484@cruskit.aarnet.edu.au> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In your message dated Mon, 12 Jul 1993 21:36:01 -0400, you write: > On Tue, 13 Jul 1993 10:15:45 +1000 Andy Linton said: > >In your message dated Tue, 13 Jul 1993 11:08:06 +1200, you write: > ^^^^ ^^^ > Does that refer to Tony Martindale? My message was addressed to Tony and CCed to the list - it seems reasonable to say 'you said'. > > >> From: berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Stephen R. van den Berg) > >> The answer to this question is easy: if there is a field in the header that > >> says: > >> Precendence: list > ^ > How did that "n" creep in there? Typo? Or is my dictionary so old > that it doesn't list anything related to this word? Stephen's original post had it like that. Note the headers of this mail have it too - sort of blows his theory away. No elaborate tricks played to do it either. I agree wholeheartedly that we need a standard in this area - has anyone else looked at the RFP put out by CREN recently: Draft Request for Proposals for a Mailing-List Software Package Including Changes Proposed May 4, 1993 It's much too large to post here: 1.12 Copies of this RFP are available, via anonymous ftp or Gopher, from the Unix machine info.cren.net, in the directory /cren-rfp, as the files ip-listserv.txt, ip-listserv.rtf, and ip-listserv.ps, for plain- text, RTF interchange format, and PostScript versions, respectively. The RFP is also available from listserv@bitnic.educom.edu (LISTSERV@BITNIC.BITNET) as the file LISTMGT RFP-TXT or LISTMGT RFP-RTF. Comments and questions about this RFP should be directed to the moderated LISTSERV list crenlist@bitnic.educom.edu; interested parties should self-subscribe to that list through listserv@bitnic.educom.edu. I wonder how many of the list managers around have this level of detail in their specs - it runs to 1200 lines. Appendix A is pertinent to this discussion. From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 09:52:58 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28882; Tue, 13 Jul 93 09:52:58 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28875; Tue, 13 Jul 93 02:52:47 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA08961; Tue, 13 Jul 93 05:55:01 EDT Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 04:51:22 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Message-Id: <930713.045122-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: To: In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 12 Jul 93 22:40:52 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I received 3 copies of the body of this item. The headers were slightly different, and only in one case could I to some extent identify the list-address using what I feel are normal/obvious headers. Here follow all three sets, though I've taken the liberty of leaving in only those headers which are relevant to an item. (I couldn't care less about "Received:", "X-...:", "Lines:", "Phone:", etc. Note that "Prece[n]dence:" doesn't tell me anything, so I've instructed my mailreader to delete it also. Note also that in some cases the address-casing in the "Cc:" line is not the same as in the other(s). | Message-Id: <199307130240.AA12321@mailman.nsf.gov> | To: "F. Scott Ophof" | From: "Ravin Asar" | Cc: LSTSRV-L@UGA.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@CS.UTexas.edu, | List-Managers@greatcircle.com, ListNix@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, | Unix-Listserv@stormking.com | Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM | In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 12 Jul 93 16:44:49 -0400. | <930712.164449-0400@MReXX-0.18> | Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 22:40:52 EDT | Sender: rasar@nsf.gov | Reply-To: Come on MLMs - fill this in | Message-Id: <199307130240.AA12321@mailman.nsf.gov> | To: "F. Scott Ophof" | From: "Ravin Asar" | Cc: LSTSRV-L@UGA.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@CS.UTexas.edu, | List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@Grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, | Unix-Listserv@stormking.com | Reply-To: Come on MLMs - fill this in | Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM | In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 12 Jul 93 16:44:49 -0400. | <930712.164449-0400@MReXX-0.18> | Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 22:40:52 EDT | Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM | Message-Id: <199307130240.AA12321@mailman.nsf.gov> | To: "F. Scott Ophof" | From: "Ravin Asar" | Cc: LSTSRV-L@UGA.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@CS.UTexas.edu, | List-Managers@greatcircle.com, ListNix@Grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, | Unix-Listserv@stormking.com | Reply-To: Come on MLMs - fill this in | Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM | In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 12 Jul 93 16:44:49 -0400. | <930712.164449-0400@MReXX-0.18> | Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 22:40:52 EDT | Sender: rasar@nsf.gov The ONLY item which has a header displaying anything which could imply it's coming from a list is the second one, and even there it's of the variety. All three I found in my mailbox, and none show the always clearly recognizable "Revised LISTSERV" setup, so none were from LSTSRV-L or comp.mail.misc. The second one says in the "Sender:" line, so it's probably from . So which of the others comes from ListNix, which from Unix-Listserv? Or did you send me one directly, Ravin? In other words, could I be missing one? And no, Ravin, none of these Unix MLMs seems to have the "Reply-To:" set to the equiv. of "ignore poster, use list-addr-only". I don't even think it's possible in those MLMs. On Mon, 12 Jul 93 22:40:52 EDT Ravin Asar said: >The message I received from "F. Scott Ophof" said: >... >> If addresses like , , or >> (gasp!) (as a/the MLM at GreatCircle.com does) >> are indeed implementation-dependant, then they too are effectively >> not too useful as a general case. >It occurred to me that none of the above should really be used as >indicators of MLM-generated mail for the simple reason that they >occur on the RHS of a field name. Come again? You mean the should be on the LEFT-hand side, ie. it should be the field-NAME? I misunderstand you, right? >> If there ain't none, then I'd like to propose that: >> Listname: Name of List >> be used for this purpose, and for no other purpose. And that this >> header and its purpose be registered, etc. >Yes, that does seem sensible to have, especially considering that >X-List* fields have been floating around for a while now, waiting to >be "adopted". A small semantic point here, though: just as one >doesn't use a "Sendername:", "Subjectmatter:" or a "Fromname:" field, >it would appear to be more appropriate and consistent (imho) to name >the field "List:". Agreed re semantics. From the same point of view I'd almost suggest to request that "Newsgroup:" be shortened to simply "News:". ;-) >I wonder if the people who started using the X-List* fields (I'm a >little short on history here) have anything in the works for >formalizing a definitive field now. The SRI-NIC was listed in >RFC822 as the keeper of registered field names. This might now be >a function of rs.internic.net. My experience with SRI-NIC (and now its successor) is less than phenomenal, so anyone who knows the magic incantations needed to extract info from that source I beg to do so and share that info with us. Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 17:33:54 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA29612; Tue, 13 Jul 93 17:33:54 GMT Received: from sally.informatik.rwth-aachen.de ([137.226.112.172]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA29605; Tue, 13 Jul 93 10:32:28 PDT Received: from messua (messua.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE) by sally.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (4.1/sally-2) id AA03874; Tue, 13 Jul 93 19:20:59 +0200 Received: by messua (4.1/POOL.3) id AA25052; Tue, 13 Jul 93 19:20:57 +0200 Message-Id: <9307131720.AA25052@messua> From: berg@pool.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (Stephen R. van den Berg) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 19:20:56 +0200 In-Reply-To: "F. Scott Ophof"'s message as of 1993 Jul 12 Mon 21:36. <930712.213601-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk "F. Scott Ophof" wrote: >>Stephen R. van den Berg wrote: >>> Precendence: list > ^ >How did that "n" creep in there? Typo? Or is my dictionary so old >that it doesn't list anything related to this word? Sorry for the confusion, slip of the finger I guess. -- Sincerely, berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless). berg@physik.tu-muenchen.de "I have a *cunning* plan!" From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 17:45:33 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02009; Wed, 14 Jul 93 17:45:33 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca ([137.207.192.3]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02002; Wed, 14 Jul 93 10:45:25 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA02145; Wed, 14 Jul 93 13:15:32 EDT Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 02:14:10 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: The term "Unix-Listserv" Message-Id: <930714.021410-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: To: Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, 13 Jul 93 08:23 EDT Duane Weaver said in a private reply the following, which he gave me permission to post for him: | The Unix version called LISTSERVER is NOT, I repeat NOT a | full implementation of the Revised LISTSERV as known on | Bitnet. | | I can say that with experience. I used to manage a Revised LISTSERV. | We are now running the unix LISTSERVER. | | LISTSERVER is a unixfied version of what the author thinks LISTSERV | does. I understand it is writtin in C. A student worker here said | the code is poorly written. Things do work differently. | The mail headers of mail from LISTSERVER are different. | | There are a few features that only recently became available in | the Revised LISTSERV. | | LISTSERVER is also not as robust as the Revised LISTSERV. IT | appears that processing a list with slightly over 400 subscribers | puts a strain on the server. | | Documentation is typical of unix software; in my opinion, piss poor. | | Duane One comment: I've heard Duane's comment re documentation (or its near equiv.) uttered quite often by others. A partial clarification is that people not used to the Unix mindset have difficulty reading such documentation, and understanding it costs a *lot* of effort. One must constantly think in symbolic and hierarchical terms if one is to make ones peace with the Unix mindset. Such people exist, that is obvious (the experts/gurus). Many of these however don't seem to (want to) understand that not all people are like that, or even wish to be so. Request: Would those responsible for past/present/future documentation please consider the plight of non-experts, and (re)write it looking through the eyes of those confused new users? Regards, and thanks in advance. $$\ F. Scott Ophof From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 19:30:52 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02178; Wed, 14 Jul 93 19:30:52 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02171; Wed, 14 Jul 93 12:30:42 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa16667; 14 Jul 93 14:21 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA09902; Wed, 14 Jul 93 14:25:02 EDT Message-Id: <9307141825.AA09902@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 14:25:01 EDT In-Reply-To: "F. Scott Ophof" "Re: The term "Unix-Listserv"" (Jul 14, 2:14am) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: "F. Scott Ophof" , LSTSRV-L@uga.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@cs.utexas.edu, Unix-Listserv@stormking.com, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr Mmdf-Warning: Parse error in original version of preceding line at Note2.nsf.gov Subject: Re: The term "Unix-Listserv" Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > | We are now running the unix LISTSERVER. > | > | LISTSERVER is a unixfied version of what the author thinks LISTSERV > | does. I understand it is writtin in C. A student worker here said > | the code is poorly written. Things do work differently. > | The mail headers of mail from LISTSERVER are different. > | > | LISTSERVER is also not as robust as the Revised LISTSERV. IT > | appears that processing a list with slightly over 400 subscribers > | puts a strain on the server. > | > | Documentation is typical of unix software; in my opinion, piss poor. Whoa!!! Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! How much did you pay for Tasos' software? Who held you down and made you use it? Tasos has spent a *lot* of time writing, documenting, and, yes, *supporting* this software. He lets you use it at no cost. He is flamed regularly by BITNET and Internet bigots because he tried to find some common ground between them. I don't know him personally, but I assume he puts up with it because he is a decent citizen of the net, one who wants to put into the net more than he extracts. He has done his homework and talked to Eric Thomas about the use of the term "listserv". He is very open to suggestions for improvement. This has gone on long enough. Please go away, and come back when you have something to contribute. --Mike From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 20:34:26 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02275; Wed, 14 Jul 93 20:34:26 GMT Received: from cs-mail.bu.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02268; Wed, 14 Jul 93 13:34:15 PDT Received: from CS.BU.EDU by cs-mail.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA03682; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:37:05 -0400 From: tasos@cs-mail.bu.edu (Anastasios Kotsikonas) Received: by cs.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA27521; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:36:58 -0400 Message-Id: <9307142036.AA27521@cs.bu.edu> Subject: Re: The term "Unix-Listserv" To: mmorse@z.nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 16:36:57 -0400 (EDT) Cc: Ophof@cs.uwindsor.ca, LSTSRV-L@uga.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@cs.utexas.edu, Unix-Listserv@stormking.com, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr In-Reply-To: <9307141825.AA09902@z.nsf.gov> from "Michael H. Morse" at Jul 14, 93 02:25:01 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1994 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > > > > | We are now running the unix LISTSERVER. > > | > > | LISTSERVER is a unixfied version of what the author thinks LISTSERV > > | does. I understand it is writtin in C. A student worker here said > > | the code is poorly written. Things do work differently. > > | The mail headers of mail from LISTSERVER are different. > > | > > | LISTSERVER is also not as robust as the Revised LISTSERV. IT > > | appears that processing a list with slightly over 400 subscribers > > | puts a strain on the server. > > | > > | Documentation is typical of unix software; in my opinion, piss poor. > > Whoa!!! Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! How much did you > pay for Tasos' software? Who held you down and made you use it? > > Tasos has spent a *lot* of time writing, documenting, and, yes, > *supporting* this software. He lets you use it at no cost. He is > flamed regularly by BITNET and Internet bigots because he tried to find > some common ground between them. I don't know him personally, but I > assume he puts up with it because he is a decent citizen of the net, > one who wants to put into the net more than he extracts. He has done > his homework and talked to Eric Thomas about the use of the term > "listserv". He is very open to suggestions for improvement. Let me just say that I put up with it because I ignore ... nonsense, to put it mildly. I accept criticism from people I can communicate with, and if some student thinks the code is poor and the doc "piss" poor, or does not know how to tweak the system or use UNIX utilities to reduce the load well, who cares after all. People who do not know what they are talking about are only hurting themselves. Flames have NEVER forced me to take a step back, and never will. As I said before, talk is cheap and I have better things to do. I do invite and encourage constructive criticism, but totally ignore people and opinions that exhibit an attitude problem, or strike me as childish. Regards, Tasos From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 21:14:29 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02329; Wed, 14 Jul 93 21:14:29 GMT Received: from d.ecc.engr.uky.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02322; Wed, 14 Jul 93 14:14:20 PDT Received: from s.ecc.engr.uky.edu by d.ecc.engr.uky.edu (5.59/25-eef) id AA17065; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:44:59 EDT Received: by s.ecc.engr.uky.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA12502; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:58:38 EDT Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:58:38 EDT From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) Message-Id: <9307142058.AA12502@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: all I can stand of this prattle Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Now that he's vented his spleen, I'm going to vent mine. Our buddy wrote: >LISTSERVER is a unixfied version of what the author thinks LISTSERV >does. I understand it is writtin in C. A student worker here said >the code is poorly written. Flaming code that you've (apparently) never examined and (apparently) couldn't understand is as useless an exercise as I've seen. I'd sug- gest that you put that nice young "student worker" right to work on writing your LISTSERV clone for you. It can't be that hard, right? After all, Eric's only been working on LISTSERV for a decade or so; I seem to remember seeing LISTSERV way back in 1982, but it could be even older. Any halfway talented Unix programmer should be able to knock out a clone of a decade's work in nothing flat, right? The *classic* characteristic of PD software in the Unix world is a simple one -- GROUP EFFORT. I know of very few major packages that have not involved dozens, even hundreds, of people. Every- one takes the time and effort to help out, testing software on their particular installations and providing patches/workarounds for everyone. Do you think that packages like gnuplot, mush, elm, perl and IDA sendmail just appeared in an FTP archive one day? If you think that something is inadequate, there are several options available to you. Patch it to work on your systems. Rewrite those portions that you find "poorly written." Come up with a manual on your own. Send your fixes/upgrades/changes to the author, so they can share your work with the rest of us. Heck, most of us have done it; in the last year or so, I've ported (or assisted in the porting of) over a dozen packages to various systems. It's called "making a contribution" or "giving something back." Obviously, these are con- cepts alien to you. Whining about it on every forum you can find (how many lists did this message hit? 4 + a Usenet newsgroup? ) doesn't achieve a single thing. >LISTSERVER is also not as robust as the Revised LISTSERV. IT >appears that processing a list with slightly over 400 subscribers >puts a strain on the server. Did you stop to think that this *might* just be a limitation of the hardware, instead of the software? There's a big difference between an IBM 3090 running LISTSERV and a Sun SPARCStation run- ning Tasos' code (or Majordomo, or any other MLM). Did you stop to think that LISTSERV has been hand-tuned for a specific set of architectures, while Majordomo, Listserver and other Unix MLMs span a huge segment of the Unix spectrum? (That is NOT intended as any sort of slam on Eric -- LISTSERV is a great piece of work) "We got it for free, but it doesn't do *exactly* what we want! It isn't as fast as the other thing we used! It's got the wrong name! This guy over here says it's poorly written! Waaaaahhhhhh! Waaaaaaaaahhhhhh!" Give it a rest. At the very least, drop list-managers from your Email Wheel O'Diatribe; we're here to talk about mailing list management, not to hear your worthless mewling. I think I'm going to be implementing that email killfile with procmail...........that's another tool developed by dozens of people working together...... Feeling *much* better now, --Wes From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 21:40:27 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02415; Wed, 14 Jul 93 21:40:27 GMT Received: from apple.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02408; Wed, 14 Jul 93 14:40:21 PDT Received: by apple.com (5.61/22-Jun-1993-eef) id AA07529; Wed, 14 Jul 93 14:43:21 -0700 for List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 14:43:21 -0700 From: Chuq Von Rospach Message-Id: <9307142143.AA07529@apple.com> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, morgan@engr.uky.edu Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Children, if you don't have anything better to do, why don't you head down to Iowa and volunteer some of this time you're spending flaming each other to hauling sandbags. Maybe that'll help put the importance of this argument back into some kind of perspective. (VERY tired of listening to the babbling). From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 17:16:39 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02631; Wed, 14 Jul 93 23:55:59 GMT Received: from relay2.UU.NET by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02614; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:55:42 PDT Received: from spool.uu.net (via LOCALHOST) by relay2.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA28255; Wed, 14 Jul 93 19:58:23 -0400 Received: from telesoft.UUCP by spool.uu.net with UUCP/RMAIL (queueing-rmail) id 195627.17715; Wed, 14 Jul 1993 19:56:27 EDT Received: from lone.alsys.com by flash.alsys.com (4.1/TS-1.2a) id AA13563; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:34:18 PDT Message-Id: <9307142334.AA13563@flash.alsys.com> Received: by lone.alsys.com (4.1/TS-1.2) id AA22479; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:34:17 PDT From: mnejat@lone.alsys.com Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 16:34:16 PDT X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.2 4/12/91) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: X.400 and Anastasios listserver. Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Can they work together? Also, what is the most common listserver software used with unix boxes. --Mehregan From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 17:46:39 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02633; Wed, 14 Jul 93 23:56:01 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02615; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:55:44 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA03309; Wed, 14 Jul 93 19:57:34 EDT Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 18:07:08 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Message-Id: <930714.180707-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: To: In-Reply-To: Your message of 13 Jul 1993 13:38:03 GMT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 13 Jul 1993 13:38:03 GMT Chris Barnes said: >On Mon, 12 Jul 1993 16:44:49 -0400 F. Scott Ophof said: >> Listname: Name of List >I totally agree with the intent, but not the implementation. *I* >think merely refining what the Sender: and From: tags indicate would >do it. IMHO, the Sender: tag should have the list address (if present); >the From: tag should ALWAYS point to the real person that initiated the >mail message. I think you will discover in RFC 822 that "Sender:" is not the formally correct header for this purpose. Agreed re "From:". I've been playing around with combinations of headers (as many others must have already) but literal & figurative headaches were the only result. >BTW: does anyone know of an ftp site for rfc822? I think it's high time >I actually sat down and read the thing..... Site: wuarchive.wustl.edu Directory: doc/rfc/ File: rfc822.txt.Z (case-sensitive) Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 02:06:46 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03995; Thu, 15 Jul 93 02:06:46 GMT Received: from cruskit.aarnet.edu.au by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03988; Wed, 14 Jul 93 19:06:24 PDT Received: from localhost.aarnet.edu.au by cruskit.aarnet.edu.au with SMTP id AA14564 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Thu, 15 Jul 1993 12:08:39 +1000 From: Andy Linton To: "F. Scott Ophof" Cc: LSTSRV-L@uga.cc.uga.edu, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, Unix-Listserv@stormking.com, comp-mail-misc@cs.utexas.edu Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM X-Organization: AARNet, GPO Box 1142, Canberra, ACT 2601, AUSTRALIA X-Phone: +61 6 249 2874 Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 12:08:36 +1000 Message-Id: <14563.742702116@cruskit.aarnet.edu.au> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In a message dated Wed, 14 Jul 1993 18:07:08 -0400, "F. Scott Ophof" writes: > >BTW: does anyone know of an ftp site for rfc822? I think it's high time > >I actually sat down and read the thing..... > > Site: wuarchive.wustl.edu > Directory: doc/rfc/ > File: rfc822.txt.Z (case-sensitive) You might want to add RFC 1123, 1425, 1426, 1427, 1428 to your list of SMTP reading - you'll find some other tangential paths to go down in those as well. RFC 822 doesn't give the full picture - remember that it's 11th birthday will be next month. From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 03:44:18 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04189; Thu, 15 Jul 93 03:44:18 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04182; Wed, 14 Jul 93 20:43:57 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA05804; Wed, 14 Jul 93 23:46:05 EDT Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 21:21:06 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle Message-Id: <930714.212106-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: To: In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:58:38 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:58:38 EDT Wes Morgan said about Duane's posting: >Now that he's vented his spleen, I'm going to vent mine. >Our buddy wrote: >>LISTSERVER is a unixfied version of what the author thinks LISTSERV >>does. I understand it is writtin in C. A student worker here said >>the code is poorly written. >Flaming code that you've (apparently) never examined and (apparently) >couldn't understand is as useless an exercise as I've seen. I'd sug- >gest that you put that nice young "student worker" right to work on >writing your LISTSERV clone for you. It can't be that hard, right? Wouldn't it be better to ask Duane to ask this student worker for more details? Maybe a thing or two could be LEARNED which might be worth implementing in this or that MLM. >The *classic* characteristic of PD software in the Unix world is >a simple one -- GROUP EFFORT. I know of very few major packages >that have not involved dozens, even hundreds, of people. Every- >one takes the time and effort to help out, testing software on >their particular installations and providing patches/workarounds >for everyone. Do you think that packages like gnuplot, mush, elm, >perl and IDA sendmail just appeared in an FTP archive one day? This characteristic is also quite classic in the BITnet world, at least in most stuff I've seen from '88 on. What drives *me* up the wall is that when people make suggestions for stuff which they think might be an improvement, and/or ask whether it would be an improvement in general, and even when they CLEARLY state they cannot implement it for whatever reason, the result ON THE INTERNET is quite often that these people get flamed from here to Arcturus (and back), are told off, or are summarily replied to with "hack the code". Ie. INTERNET people seem to have very long toes. Now THAT characteristic (long toes) does NOT seem to be as general ON BITNET, in fact, quite rare in my experience. I've seen enough postings on BITnet that are outright flames but where the flame is ignored or joked about, with the meat of the posting being taken into serious consideration. I've also seen way too many VERY POLITE postings on the Internet where the ONLY result is nasty and uncalled-for flames. Now can we quit feeling that our precious toes are being stepped on? Just because a product is "free" does NOT mean its lesser points cannot be criticised. Also, contributions to products can be made in numerous ways, one of which is pointing out certain aspects of those products. Most of us contribute at whatever level we can. I've seen people contribute with "only" a fanfare-trumpet-hurray posting to some list, thanking the implementor(s) of a product! But a "thank you for a job well done" is not a "contribution", right? And documentation (of which user help-files & such) are of course totally irrelevant, and one shouldn't waste any time on such useless crap, right? Because who the hell cares what a USER thinks of a product?! And why should one EVER take the trouble to even consider that a USER might think differently than the implementor(s) of some product? My suggestion: Pull in those toes and try to think like a USER. Just once... If you can't, hey that's OK (nobody's perfect), talk with a GOOD teacher, or to people at the help-desk who have a good reputation interfacing with users (or ditto computer consultant at the CC). They'll be glad to help you out; it's part of their work. >Whining about it on every forum you can find (how many lists did this >message hit? 4 + a Usenet newsgroup? ) doesn't achieve a single thing. Duane gave me permission to post it, and *I* decided to post it to 5 discussion centers. Some people have already responded with positive comments and requests for suggestions and more details. IMHO a good start towards improvements related to MLMs in general. >>LISTSERVER is also not as robust as the Revised LISTSERV. IT >>appears that processing a list with slightly over 400 subscribers >>puts a strain on the server. ..[Might be more hardware- than software-related].. >Did you stop to think that LISTSERV has been hand-tuned for a >specific set of architectures, while Majordomo, Listserver and >other Unix MLMs span a huge segment of the Unix spectrum? (That >is NOT intended as any sort of slam on Eric -- LISTSERV is a great >piece of work) So what are we all gonna do? Sit on our halos, feel we've done our best, stick out our long toes, and leave it up to the poor USERS to figure out how to talk with all these differing MLMs? Or are we going to try to figure out how to improve all these MLMs even more? >Feeling *much* better now, >--Wes Really? (grin) Or have I managed to find some toes/feet not yet stepped on? >;-> Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 07:46:26 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04518; Thu, 15 Jul 93 07:46:26 GMT Received: from ub-gate.UB.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04511; Thu, 15 Jul 93 00:46:17 PDT Received: from bolis.UUCP by ub-gate.UB.com (4.1/SMI-4.1[UB-1.8]) id AA12895; Thu, 15 Jul 93 00:49:11 PDT Received: by hock.bolis.sf-bay.org (Smail3.1.28.1 #6) id m0oGNqX-0002ywC; Thu, 15 Jul 93 00:35 PDT Message-Id: From: Alan Millar Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle To: Ophof@CS.UWindsor.Ca (F. Scott Ophof) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 00:35:14 -0800 (PDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <930714.212106-0400@MReXX-0.18> from "F. Scott Ophof" at Jul 14, 93 09:21:06 pm Reply-To: Alan Millar X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1660 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Verily didst F. Scott Ophof rise up and spake thus: > So what are we all gonna do? Sit on our halos, feel we've done our > best, stick out our long toes, and leave it up to the poor USERS to > figure out how to talk with all these differing MLMs? I believe that the poor users (all of us being one at various times) are all too easily confused by the differences among the MLMs. And in my opinion, the very first stumbling block is "what address do I send my subscription request to?" Send it to listserv@here, listserver@there, mailserv@somewhere.else, and majordomo@that.other.one Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? Presumably the best choice to try for some consistency would be "listserv@whereever". How does this square with the recent flap over intellectual property rights to the name "LISTSERV"? (*I* am perfectly happy to tell people "I run Majordomo, send your requests to listserv@blah.blah. You'll get a reply that says From: Majordomo ". It is fine with me. But will the Don't-call-it-listserv-when-it-isn't-Eric's-Revised-Listserv people have a problem with it?) > Or are we going to try to figure out how to improve all these MLMs > even more? Can't argue with that. - Alan ---- ,,,, Alan Millar amillar@bolis.SF-Bay.org __oo \ System Administrator =___/ Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! -Wizard of Oz From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 02:47:30 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04725; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:20:25 GMT Received: from deepthought.cs.utexas.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04716; Thu, 15 Jul 93 02:20:09 PDT Received: from im4u.cs.utexas.edu by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA26489; Thu, 15 Jul 93 04:23:21 -0500 Received: from chinaca by im4u.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.18/uucp) with UUCP id AA17069; Thu, 15 Jul 93 04:23:04 -0500 Received: from coldsnap.unicom.com by chinacat.unicom.com with smtp (smail3.1.28.1) id m0oGOkq-0002ZXC; Thu, 15 Jul 93 03:33 CDT Received: from localhost by coldsnap.unicom.com (smail3.1.28.1) id m0oGOks-00025PC; Thu, 15 Jul 93 03:33 CDT Message-Id: From: chip@chinacat.unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal) Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 03:33:29 -0500 (CDT) In-Reply-To: from "Alan Millar" at Jul 15, 93 00:35:14 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 608 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, > wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send > to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? We should stick with the Internet convention of using a `-request' address, and the local administrator should feel free to alias that to whatever he or she feels inclined to do. -- Chip Rosenthal 512-447-0577 | I'm going out where the lights don't shine so Unicom Systems Development | bright. When I get back you can treat me like | a Saturday night. -Jimmie Dale Gilmore From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 09:52:19 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04776; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:52:19 GMT Received: from livbird.liv.ac.uk by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04769; Thu, 15 Jul 93 02:52:02 PDT Received: from localhost.liv.ac.uk by liverbird.liverpool.ac.uk with Local-SMTP (PP) id <03924-0@liverbird.liverpool.ac.uk>; Thu, 15 Jul 1993 10:53:33 +0100 To: mnejat@lone.alsys.com Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: X.400 and Anastasios listserver. In-Reply-To: The Message of "Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:34:16 PDT." Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 10:53:30 +0100 Message-Id: <3922.742730010@livbird.liv.ac.uk> From: Alan Thew Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 14 Jul 1993 16:34:16 PDT mnejat@lone.alsys.com wrote: >Can they work together? We've had problems. X.400 mail will be converted to something resembling RFC822 long before Listserver ever sees it but it tends to have a long row of "------------------------------" as the first line.... listserver junks the message. If you mean "can listserver handle native X.400?" . The answer is no. You need to have a X.400 MTA convert it to RFC822 (can be done) before you stand a chamce. -- Alan Thew alan.thew@livbird.liv.ac.uk ...!uknet!livbird!alan.thew +44 51 794 3735 From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 10:40:36 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04903; Thu, 15 Jul 93 10:40:36 GMT Received: from livbird.liv.ac.uk by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04896; Thu, 15 Jul 93 03:40:26 PDT Received: from localhost.liv.ac.uk by liverbird.liverpool.ac.uk with Local-SMTP (PP) id <04068-0@liverbird.liverpool.ac.uk>; Thu, 15 Jul 1993 11:41:00 +0100 To: chip@chinacat.unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle In-Reply-To: The Message of "Thu, 15 Jul 93 03:33:29 CDT." Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 11:40:59 +0100 Message-Id: <4066.742732859@livbird.liv.ac.uk> From: Alan Thew Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, 15 Jul 1993 03:33:29 -0500 (CDT) Chip Rosenthal wrote: >> Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, >> wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send >> to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? > >We should stick with the Internet convention of using a `-request' >address, and the local administrator should feel free to alias that >to whatever he or she feels inclined to do. The only problem with the above is that it's a convention. BITNET software does not use it, many sendmail based software packages tend to use the -owners convention. It would be useful to have an RFC (pigs will fly :-)). There are 2 issues, one is how MLMs look to a user and what other headers MLM's use to identify themselves to MTAs. -- Alan Thew alan.thew@livbird.liv.ac.uk ...!uknet!livbird!alan.thew +44 51 794 3735 From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 13:33:48 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05142; Thu, 15 Jul 93 13:33:48 GMT Received: from cs-mail.bu.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05135; Thu, 15 Jul 93 06:33:41 PDT Received: from CS.BU.EDU by cs-mail.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA14433; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:36:45 -0400 From: tasos@cs-mail.bu.edu (Anastasios Kotsikonas) Received: by cs.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA12276; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:36:44 -0400 Message-Id: <9307151336.AA12276@cs.bu.edu> Subject: Re: X.400 and Anastasios listserver. To: Alan.Thew@livbird.liv.ac.uk (Alan Thew) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 09:36:43 -0400 (EDT) Cc: mnejat@lone.alsys.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <3922.742730010@livbird.liv.ac.uk> from "Alan Thew" at Jul 15, 93 10:53:30 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 218 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > If you mean "can listserver handle native X.400?" . The answer is no. You > need to have a X.400 MTA convert it to RFC822 (can be done) before you > stand a chamce. Actually the answer is yes in version 6.0. Tasos From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 14:21:09 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05282; Thu, 15 Jul 93 14:21:09 GMT Received: from d.ecc.engr.uky.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05275; Thu, 15 Jul 93 07:20:59 PDT Received: from s.ecc.engr.uky.edu by d.ecc.engr.uky.edu (5.59/25-eef) id AA21766; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:53:34 EDT Received: by s.ecc.engr.uky.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA17047; Thu, 15 Jul 93 10:07:13 EDT Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 10:07:13 EDT From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) Message-Id: <9307151407.AA17047@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle Cc: amillar@bolis.sf-bay.org, ophof@cs.uwindsor.ca Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, >wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send >to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? Well, there are a few stumbling blocks: - Some sites don't run an MLM of any sort. I do not; I use the facilities of sendmail to manage the list and manage users by hand. Should I have to install an MLM just to run a single mailing list? (If you peruse the Internet List of Lists, you'll find that the VAST majority of Internet lists are run in this fashion; I'd estimate that less than 10% of Internet mailing lists use an MLM.) - Some systems place limitations on usernames. As a matter of fact, "LISTSERV" is a result of BITNET's 8-character limit. 8) - Lists are running on everything from IBM 3090s to Crays to AT&T 3B2s to PCs in indivdual homes. Ex- pecting each of them to provide the same services may be unrealistic. >Presumably the best choice to try for some consistency would >be "listserv@whereever". How does this square with the recent >flap over intellectual property rights to the name "LISTSERV"? > >(*I* am perfectly happy to tell people "I run Majordomo, send your >requests to listserv@blah.blah. You'll get a reply that >says From: Majordomo ". It is fine with me. >But will the Don't-call-it-listserv-when-it-isn't-Eric's-Revised-Listserv >people have a problem with it?) Well, I think that the common name would perpetuate the users' problems, since "listserv" tells you nothing about the command set necessaary for that particular piece of software. If folks assume (and they seem to do so frequently) that "listserv@wherever" implies Eric Thomas' LISTSERV, they'll be surprised by the results of their commands. >> Or are we going to try to figure out how to improve all these MLMs >> even more? > >Can't argue with that. Well, I don't think that "improve" should necessarily mean "set of commands common to every single implementation." The library cata- loguing folks have been dealing with this very problem; if you surf the Internet, you'll find catalogs running under NOTIS, INNOPAC, DOBIS, and dozens of other programs. Is the library crowd screaming for a global standard? No; they're collecting information across the spectrum. Look at Billy Barron's UNT Guide to Online Library Resources; in its appendices, it give the basic command set for the various catalog facilities in use throughout the Internet. Why not do the same for MLMs? Organize it conceptually; dedicate a page or two to "getting a catalog of available mailing lists," and include the instructions for doing so with LISTSERV, majordomo and others. Is there anything wrong with that solution? Remember, too, that LISTSERV represents a decade's work; you won't find many packages that can match its abilities. In fact, may MLMs don't even try to do so; the combination of an MLM and an ftp archive is every bit as good as the 'single source' LISTSERV mail/file server model. --Wes From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 15:27:39 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05412; Thu, 15 Jul 93 15:27:39 GMT Received: from mailman.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05405; Thu, 15 Jul 93 08:27:30 PDT Received: from localhost by mailman.nsf.gov with SMTP id AA17089 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Thu, 15 Jul 1993 11:31:57 -0400 Message-Id: <199307151531.AA17089@mailman.nsf.gov> From: "Ravin Asar" To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: MLM standards In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 15 Jul 93 00:35:14 -0800. Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 11:31:57 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The message I received from Alan Millar said: ... > (*I* am perfectly happy to tell people "I run Majordomo, send your > requests to listserv@blah.blah. You'll get a reply that > says From: Majordomo ". It is fine with me. > But will the Don't-call-it-listserv-when-it-isn't-Eric's-Revised-Listserv > people have a problem with it?) > - Alan ... Recent discussion (except for the brief flaming intermission) appears to boil down to "reserving" a name for the local part of an email address. So far, it appears, the only reserved address that has been deemed necessary is "postmaster" on the Internet (see RFC822 section 6.3) and "POSTMAST" on the BITNet (right?). The one single reason for this special case is so that there is a single POC for reporting mail system problems or querying a human at the site about email-related matters. It doesn't seem appropriate to set aside an address to suit the purpose of specialized email *software*. Usage of list server (I use the term generically) software is something we happen to be seeing a lot of these days. In the future there could conceivably be other software that happens to become commonly used. If reserved addresses were to become the rule of the day, network (Internet and BITNet) users and developers would constantly have to be up on the "Reserved Addresses of The Day" list. In my humble opinion (I've gotten tired of acronyms) the issue of consistent behaviour between MLMs might be better handled in the following manner: a) As AMillar@bolis.sf-bay.org seemed to imply, a standard MINIMAL command set be established for MLMs to comply with (ala sendmail, LISTSERV, etc). b) Leave the issue of setting up an email address for the list server in the hands of the email system administrators at each site - it really doesn't have to be anyones business what address one sets up at one's own site. I don't intend to restart a heaving debate on intellectual property rights, but in general local addresses are just that - local. They need *not* purport to be anything but that. Note: One might make a lot of enemies if one were to break with tradition (like aliasing "postmaster" to /dev/null on a Unix system) but the network users both inside and out would take care of setting the admin straight. Not to mention that they would probably get thrown off the Internet, too. This way if one used an MLM that was "compliant" with the minimal command set, it would at least respond predictably to commands such as, say, SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, HELP, etc. One of these commands (possibly HELP) could be one that returns the list of extra commands that were in use at that site or with that particular MLM. This would leave developers/hackers free to add features without affecting the acceptable or predictable behaviour of the MLM. -Ravin Note: Please pardon my lack of knowledge about BITNet conventions. __________________________________________________________________ Ravin Asar | National Science Foundation System Manager: Unix Systems | 1800 G St. NW #440 | Washington, DC 20550 Official: postmaster@nsf.gov | Phone: (202) 357-5934 Personal: rasar@nsf.gov | Fax: (202) 357-7663 __________________________________|_______________________________ IMHO From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 15:43:54 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05466; Thu, 15 Jul 93 15:43:54 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05459; Thu, 15 Jul 93 08:43:41 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa10112; 15 Jul 93 11:28 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10658; Thu, 15 Jul 93 11:31:30 EDT Message-Id: <9307151531.AA10658@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 11:31:30 EDT X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: In case you missed this... Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Eric makes good points, so I thought I'd forward them. --Mike --- Forwarded mail from Eric Thomas >From ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE Wed Jul 14 19:11:16 1993 From: Eric Thomas Subject: Re: The term "Unix-Listserv" To: "Forum on LISTSERV release 1.7" , "Michael H. Morse" On Wed, 14 Jul 1993 14:25:01 EDT "Michael H. Morse" said: >He has done his homework and talked to Eric Thomas about the use of the >term "listserv". He is very open to suggestions for improvement. Well excuse me, but this is bullshit. I have explicitly asked Tasos to change the name of his software and to remove the sentence in the help file that claims it is a unix implementation of my software (see below). While I admit I am not FTP'ing the software every day to see if these changes have been made, to the best of my knowledge he has always ignored my request, which sets him aside as the only person in the Internet who refused this simple courtesy. The EARN Association, representing 100k's of users, made a similar request in a formal, written letter; same results. Here is the quote I object to, in addition to the name the software uses to refer to itself (I understand that Tasos has no control over what individual sites decide to alias to his daemon): >LISTSERV is a system that was originally designed by Eric Thomas for >BITNET nodes (...) This version is a bitnet-flavored UNIX implementation >(not a port of the original LISTSERV), Most people expect two implementations of X to be compatible, with the possible exception of a limited number of OS-specific functions. If I give you a diskette and tell you it contains a MS-DOS implementation of emacs, which however is not a port of the original code, you will probably expect the controls to be the same as the GNU emacs on unix, except that directories might have backslashes. You certainly don't expect to find EDIT on the diskette. If you bought EDIT from me, thinking it was emacs, and liked it, the author of emacs would still have reason to be angry at me for creating all this confusion. Especially if you then went around to your friends and showed them "emacs", and they decided to stick with Notepad instead. Now let me tell you why this upsets me on a personal level. Like Tasos I have put enormous amounts of time in this, and because I didn't like the idea of turning into a marketing shark and had a good job with a comfortable salary, I provided the software free of charge for years. I will not bore you with all the unrelated problems that I got as a result of this naive decision. But one of these problems is that people like Tasos and you seem to think they have a constitutional right and duty to make me waste hours every month trying to explain to users that 'unix listserv' has nothing to do with LISTSERV, and that the reason "my" unix implementation of LISTSERV is not compatible with the VM implementation is that they have nothing to do with each other. Now, if I had started selling LISTSERV when there were enough sites using it to turn a serious profit, ie in 1987, the trademark would have been registered since that time. It might conceivably only have made it to the secondary register, but even in that case, after 5 years without any challenge from a business using the name for trade, it would have been upgraded to the primary register. Today, anyone using the name 'unix listserv' for a list manager without my consent would be in the same situation as someone selling computers under the brand name 'unix Apple'. But I wouldn't need to worry about that or even type this message, because the level of respect for private and corporate property in the US is such that everyone would find it perfectly normal that only I can use the name 'listserv' for list managers and only Apple can use the name 'Apple' for personal computers. But since I was naive enough to decide to make my efforts freely available, I am now in the situation I am in, with dozens of people claiming I am just a megalomaniac fascist who thinks he owns the letters that make up the word LISTSERV, and adding this to their list of punch-card jokes, hehe. Note that the fact that the trademark was not registered when the product was first released doesn't mean it cannot be registered now. In fact, it is common practice to register trademarks in only one country, and use a trademark under common law in all others until you need to have your rights enforced. I didn't try to register LISTSERV as a trademark when Tasos started using the name because we're talking $1-2k if it goes smoothly and lots of talking to individuals whose company I do not really enjoy, but there is nothing that says you have to register a trademark initially or never. Anyway, now things are a lot simpler. LISTSERV has finally become a product, and every time an organization without a mailing list manager installs Tasos's software because they thought it was the same as the VM LISTSERV, this is going to constitute a potential loss of business for the company that distributes LISTSERV. Sometimes the organization in question would not be interested in a VM version anyway, so it won't make much of a difference. And sometimes it will be a corporation with many IBM mainframes and the loss will be genuine (you can never be sure of course, but you can make a good estimate). So this is no longer a personal problem to be dealt with at an emotional level, this is a simple business problem that has to be handled as such. The company that sells LISTSERV is not interested in solving the personal problems I may have with various individuals, h