OT: majordomo and ezmlm are so uncool

[Greg Woods]

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