When I saw that listproc was going open source, I was sort of pleased - I
have managed mailing lists that ran under Listserv for some time, and now
under Listproc, and I had a sentimental spot in my heart for it. There
are a whole bunch of things it does just really, really well. But I run
this stuff as a hobby, from my home system, and I could not imagine paying
for a MLM, and I also was in the situation of not quite fitting into their
"Lite" license (including that minor issue of not having source). So it
was never an option for my home system.
So when I heard that listproc was open source now, I ran off and grabbed a
copy, and began trying to install it.
I grabbed the stuff off of the sourceforge site, and started following
directions to do the installation. I blew it by not following the
directions closely enough, and then started doing things step by
step. Finally, I got to a point where the instructions seemed to be
calling for a section that was not there, the tar of text files. I could
not find them. There was some indication that I might not need them (there
was one point in the doc where they implied that you would only need the
text files if you were going to run the test suite which they said up front
was not included with the released source. I got through compiling on
Linux (I needed to write one patch that was rather minor, a one liner
involving a call to va_arg with a char - the new instructions say that you
call with an "int" and cast the output to a char, because of argument
promotion) but other than a lot of warning messages, I had no issues and
got the compile and what they called the binary install done.
But the issue at the end was that I could not get it to work.
My belief is that the stuff available on the open source site is not
complete - that is, the source does not contain all of the pieces that are
actually required to do an installation of listproc. You need a set of
text files (and sample config files would be nice) to actually do an
installation, and the listproc sources don't contain them. When you look at
the instructions, at some point, once you have a clean compile, they tell
you to get a copy of an installation, which it still seems you have to pay
for unless you are a member. The text files include, I believe, command
responses, the text that is returned by an info command, and some other
things like that.
I may well be wrong about this --- but I did an installation using what was
labeled as the stable source off of sourceforge, and things are failing,
and in so far as I can analyze the problem, this seems to be the issue,
missing files. I sent a note off to the support list, but it is too soon
to tell if I will get an answer yet or not.
I do note that the sample config files are not included with the source
package either, and you are going nowhere fast without them. However, the
main config was published a few days ago on the support list and I grabbed
a copy. (Someone else is doing an install from source). This allowed me to
get far enough to create a list, but this does not allow me to do other
things with the list, like subscribe people to it. Bummer.
But, as noted here, if you have an existing license, the new sources might
be a good thing for you. If you do not, it may not be possible to start
with the sources on sourceforge and arrive at a working listproc.
As I continue to look for a replacement for my much modified Majordomo 1,
listproc was tempting, for sentimental reasons if nothing else. However,
Mailman might well be the winner. Or I could just have screwed up
something. But my belief is that if you go to sourceforge looking for the
sources to try and do a from scratch listproc install, you are going to
feel burned at the end of the process. (Or maybe you are smarter than I
am, in that case, help.)
If someone knows better than I do, please enlighten me. I was really
hoping that we would have an industrial strength open-source mailing list
manager available. And I was hoping that I could replace my aging
Majordomo 1 installation with Listproc. But I don't want to run around
scrounging for stuff to try to run the installation - if the sources and
support files are not all in one place, I may just run something else. If
my diagnosis is correct, and the people who prepare custom installs want to
keep doing it, they just want to say, "Our product is open-source," well,
I'll use something else.
When you go to the site, you see a pointer to builds and the source.
If you are lazy like I am, you check the builds first, and this is all it
says on the page:
http://listproc.sourceforge.net/builds.html
>If you are interested in becoming a CREN member, or if you are interested in
>purchasing a pre-compiled version of CREN-ListProc, contact Jim Reynolds,
>CREN System Administrator.
From the build instruction under the source page:
http://listproc.sourceforge.net/source/BUILD.txt
>No existing ListProc Installation:
>
> If you do not have an existing ListProc install the safest thing is
> to get one from us and install and configure it according to the
> instructions, and play with it a bit. ListProc depends on a number
> of text files being installed and configured correctly. Do this
> even if you are making a port to a new system---just don't run any
> of the binaries before you've untarred your new ones according to
> the instructions above.
>
> It would also be a good idea to look at the recently changed files
> in the the source text directory; config has almost certainly been
> changed, and you may want to merge those changes in to customize
> new features.
This, I think, supports my conclusion. If you don't have an installation,
you need to get one, which means you either need to be a CREN member or you
need to purchase one.
In either case, I am out in the cold trying to use listproc.
At 08:45 AM 2002-02-15 -0500, Anastasios Kotsikonas wrote:
>I just saw CREN's announcement to abandon their re-write effort, 9.0.
>When I left the project I had hoped it would get the attention it
>deserved. Nonetheless, I think this is good news. I hope the community
>will take care of the product. I will go around announcing to all
>6.0x registered users that the 8.2_09 source code is now available!
>
>tasos
>
> >
> > If you want to take a look-see/use/contribute-to an industrial
> > strength mailing-list manager, CREN's ListProc was has been
> > open-sourced and made available via Sourceforge.
> >
> > http://listproc.sourceforge.net/index.html
> >
> > - michael
--
War is an ugly thing, but it is not the ugliest of things. The decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is
worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to
fight, nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety, is a
miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made so by the
exertions of better men than himself. -- John Stuart Mill
Nick Simicich - njs@scifi.squawk.com
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