I've been trying to work out how spamassassin works in the postfix/amavis context. (Either the quantity of spam email has decreased dramatically, or spamassassin is working for me, but how?)
I've been trying to join the spamassassin-users and postfix-users mailing lists so that I can pursue this query, hopefully on gmail, and have found this simple task beyond me.
Amazingly, spamassassin-users - under the auspices of apache! - uses the ezmlm mailing-list software, which according to Wikipedia has not been updated since 1997, and which "only works with the qmail mail transfer agent". (Can this really be true?)
Almost as weird, postfix-users - under the auspices of sourceforge - uses majordomo (last release 13 years ago) which I thought was displaced by mailman at least 10 years ago. Unsurprisingly, it provides me with a totally-garbled digest, starting --------- Digest of postfix-users list Tuesday, December 3 2013 Volume 01 : Number 3910
[none] [none] [none] ... ---------
What is the attraction of these decrepit mailing-list programs?
On Wed, 2013-12-11 at 14:29 +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote:
the ezmlm mailing-list software, which according to Wikipedia has not been updated since 1997, and which "only works with the qmail mail transfer agent". (Can this really be true?)
Yes, it could. But they mean that qmail has to be running at the list hosting site, not that every member of the list must be on a qmail server.
What is the attraction of these decrepit mailing-list programs?
Probably just that it's a huge pain to upgrade. We made the move from Majordomo to Mailman a long time ago, and with hundreds of lists to migrate, it was a multi-day project, during which many of the lists were not working at various times. Then our dozens of (mostly non-technical) list managers had to learn to use Mailman. It was a big disruption and a lot of work. Of course we think it was worth it; Mailman, with its web interface, is certainly a lot easier for the public to use. But I can only imagine what it would be like for SourceForge, as they probably have thousands of lists.
I'm not trying to "justify" their choice, since I have no idea what resources those folks have available. Just to point out what it looks like from the list management side, from my perspective as one who runs mail servers for a living.
Personally, I looked briefly at qmail way back when, and decided it was a no-go because of the "my way or the highway" license it carries.
--Greg
On 12/11/2013 06:44 AM, Greg Woods wrote:
Personally, I looked briefly at qmail way back when, and decided it was a no-go because of the "my way or the highway" license it carries.
The maintainer is known to watch UseNet for mentions of his program that he doesn't consider sufficiently complimentary and respond to those posts with flames. I've seen it happen.
12/11/2013 06:29 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
What is the attraction of these decrepit mailing-list programs?
I can't speak to Mailman but I'll speak up for ezmlm.
It hasn't been updated for years because it was well written and it just works. No bugs have been found that would require changes to the code.
I set up qmail with ezmlm for a completely non-technical type and he took to it like a duck to water. It allowed him to control all aspects of the list with nothing more than a mail client. In all these years it has never crashed or required any maintenance whatsoever.
No reason to shoot a good horse :)
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 07:19:54 -0800, Mike Wright mike.wright@mailinator.com wrote:
12/11/2013 06:29 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
What is the attraction of these decrepit mailing-list programs?
I can't speak to Mailman but I'll speak up for ezmlm.
It hasn't been updated for years because it was well written and it just works. No bugs have been found that would require changes to the code.
They may also be using ezmlm-idx which was last updated 8 years ago.
The reason one might want to use ezmlm and qmail instead of some other product is VERP. This makes for better bounce handling. However it doesn't work so well if you send large messages and there are multiple recipients on the same host.
* Mike Wright:
12/11/2013 06:29 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
What is the attraction of these decrepit mailing-list programs?
I can't speak to Mailman but I'll speak up for ezmlm.
It hasn't been updated for years because it was well written and it just works. No bugs have been found that would require changes to the code.
The confirmed opt-in subscription functionality is broken. It tends to subscribe auto-responders if someone or something sends malware. That happens less with the approach used by Mailman (even though it is still convenient) or classic Majordomo.
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 23:05:01 +0100, Florian Weimer fw@deneb.enyo.de wrote:
The confirmed opt-in subscription functionality is broken. It tends to subscribe auto-responders if someone or something sends malware. That happens less with the approach used by Mailman (even though it is still convenient) or classic Majordomo.
Only broken auto-responders.
* Bruno Wolff, III:
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 23:05:01 +0100, Florian Weimer fw@deneb.enyo.de wrote:
The confirmed opt-in subscription functionality is broken. It tends to subscribe auto-responders if someone or something sends malware. That happens less with the approach used by Mailman (even though it is still convenient) or classic Majordomo.
Only broken auto-responders.
Doesn't matter, it's still a bug that increases the administrative burden of running a mailing list.
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 23:21:19 +0100, Florian Weimer fw@deneb.enyo.de wrote:
Doesn't matter, it's still a bug that increases the administrative burden of running a mailing list.
It isn't a bug. It is a feature. (It makes it simple to confirm subscription.) And mailman has a similar feature, and broken autoresponders can also successfully complete its subscription process. Though they have to include the message being replied to as well as responding to the incorrect address.)
Auto responders that respond to mail header addresses are broken and will cause problems in other cases. (They should only be responding to the envelope sender address and if the envelope sender address is empty, they shouldn't be responding at all.)
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Bruno Wolff III -
Florian Weimer -
Greg Woods -
Joe Zeff -
Mike Wright -
Timothy Murphy