[KLUG Members] list serv

[members@kalamazoolinux.org]

>>>>I was wondering what is the list serv of choice for the gurus on this
>>>>list?  I am currently using Sendmail for my mta on a red hat 7.3 box.
>>>>I was thinking about majordomo but am not sure yet....
>>>Majordomo is overkill for lots of stuff. I prefer to use SMARTLIST for
>>>most of these applications, unless they are very big. Another good one
>>>is what KLUG uses now, called MAILMAN. KLUG converted to mailman for
>>>some features, but SMARTLIST is certainly capable of handling the load.
>>>
>>We went to mailman because it had a a lot of neat features that smartlist 
>>just didn't have. For example, the archiving is much better, IMHO.
Our archiving was "scotch-taped" together by a past member, with a couple
of packages he favored, and some of his own (and poorly documented) coding.

Smartlist is available as a core package, around which other developers have
built additional functionality. Mailman is more of a "one-stop shopping" 
solution. Smartlist is more open, and is written in languages that are 
fairly well-known (mostly PROCMAIL and PERL), while much of Mailman is 
written in Python, which is not as well known, and has already been cited 
as one reason NOT to do something in making modifications to mailman.

>Mailman is *REALLY* *NICE*.  MUCH better than anything else I've seen.
>(IMO, Smartlist sucks - we used to run it on the KLUG server).
Well, no one ever accused Bruce of not having an opinion! :)

My approach differs, and so my opinions differ, too. I think Smartlist is
a good solution for a particular size list population, and it can be out-
grown. I don't believe anyone feels Smartlist was outgrown (by KLUG) on 
list volume.

I believe that one thing you do not want to do is choose packages that are 
too "heavyweight" as a solution. There are plenty of "lightweight" solutions
out there for people with "lightweight" requirements. You may risk outgrowing
a lightweight solution, but actually things are going great if this is your 
most serious problem. If you adopt a heavyweight package prematurely, you
may be saddled with maintenance or other tasks you don't want, without
having the volume to justify them.

>I've heard that Majordomo is a real pain to administer, but I've never
>tried it personally.
I administer a couple of lists on Majordomo-based servers, and lemmetellya,
it is a pain. However, the organization had over 2,000 mailing lists, some
of which have several thousand members. Majordomo has a lot of features as
well. We put up with the pain of dealing with Majordomo because for some
organizations, the problem has scaled up beyond the ability of other soft-
ware to handle every requirement.

The moral of all this is that if you're going to host small lists with 
simple needs, you can go with smaller, simpler packages. As things get
bigger (in head-count and/or volume) they tend to get more complicated,
and that's where bigger packages come in. 

>Mailman also comes as an RPM on stock Redhat 7.3, and is under active
>development.  I'm not sure the development status of Smartlist, but I
>know it's been off-again/on-again, so IF it's NOT under active
>development, ...
It's fairly clear that while there have been periods where it has not been
under active development continuously, it has had continuous support. The
latest version of the Smartlist FAQ shows updates less than a month old,
which is an indication of active support.

>and a security hole is found, then who's going to fix it?
The active Smartlist developer base.

Here again, the approach is a bit different than it is with some other 
packages. Smartlist is based on procmail, which is under active support
and development, and also works on top of whatever mail server software
you have, like sendmail, qmail, etc. which you can pick (which have, last
I checked, active support and development, and security problems fixed)

>Redhat recently released an update to Mailman to fix a security hole, so
>make sure you have the latest if you install from RPM.  Or you can get
>the source and other pre-compiled binaries at:  http://www.list.org/
Smartlist has not had a security related release, since it relies on the
security (or INsecurity) of underlying software, and good administrative
practice.

>It's also web based administration, and web based user interface.
That's true... Smartlist has FIVE of them. again, available from other
sources. 

>Look at all the options you can change for your personal account on this
>mailing list.  (things like "digest mode" and the ability to suspend
>mail delivery, and a half dozen other options)  Subtract all of those
>options, the admin web interface, and the user web interface, and what
>you have left resembles Smartlist.  (Did I mention Smartlist sucks? :)
Yes, you did, and even with the smileys, it just ain't so. It's like
claiming that Linux has not GUI system, since it's not built in to the
kernel.....

My point in this is not whether or not Mailman is a bad choice (it's not),
or whether Smartlist is "better" for you (or KLUG), but that there are a lot 
of choices out there, and I've provided one. Take a look at all of these
tools, but please note that Majordomo is indeed a heavyweight solution,
one you might not want to support. Smartlist is a very lightweight solution,
with a lot of optional functionality available from different sites. Mailman
may lie somewhere in the middle; I've found it easier to administer lists
on Mailman than with Majordomo, but harder to customize than Smartlist.
Finally, note that a lot of these factors are personal; your level of 
familiarity with particular languages (Python, PERL, shell scripting and
procmail tools), and your need to customize, and your desire to integrate
different tools will drive your choices.

							Regards,
							---> RGB <---