~mailman-coders/mailman/2.1 : revision 29

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Title: Mailman Considered Beneficial

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<title>Mailman Considered Beneficial</title>

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<a href="./docs.html">Documentation</a>

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<a href="./lists.html">Mailing lists</a>

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</td>

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<a href="./download.html">Download</a>

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<a href="./devs.html">Developers</a>

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</table>

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<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3"

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bgcolor="#ffffff">

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Overview

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<a href="features.html">Features</a>

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<a href="i18n.html">Internationalization</a>

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<a href="otherstuff.html">Rants, Papers, and Logos</a>

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<a href="inthenews.html">Mailman in Use</a>

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<a href="prev.html">Previous Releases</a>

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<a href="bugs.html">Bugs and Patches</a>

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<a href="mirrors.html">Mirrors</a>

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Rants

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<b>Mailman Considered Beneficial</b>

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Email Us

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<a href="mailto:barry@python.org">Barry Warsaw</a>

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<a href="http://www.python.org/"><img border=0

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src="./images/PythonPoweredSmall.png"

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></a> <a href="http://sourceforge.net"><img

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src="http://sourceforge.net/sflogo.php?group_id=103"

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width="88" height="31" border="0"

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alt="SourceForge Logo"></a>

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Free Software Foundation, Inc. Verbatim copying and distribution of this

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entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

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</table>

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<h3>Mailman Considered Beneficial</h3>

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Jamie Zawinski posted an article in 2002 titled <a

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href="http://www.jwz.org/doc/mailman.html">Mailman Considered

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Harmful</a>. I know Jamie and respect him, but I respectfully

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disagree with his assessment. You'd be worried if I didn't, eh?

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<p>To give Jamie the benefit of the doubt, I believe he was reviewing

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older versions of the Mailman software, where some of his complaints

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may have been appropriate. Here is a rebuttal to his

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article, based on

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<a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=103">the

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latest stable release of Mailman 2.1</a>, unless otherwise specified.

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<h4>Mailman is a pain in the ass for the end user.</h4>

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Jamie must have reviewed a pre-2.0 version, because Mailman releases

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since 2.0 have implemented the "sane" recipe. Indeed it would be

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insane not to. I may be mad, but I'm not insane. In fact, in Mailman

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2.1, there are several ways to get unsubscribed, any one of which will

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work just fine:

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<ul>

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<li>Send a message to <em>list</em>-leave or <em>list</em>-unsubscribe and

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reply to the confirmation message. It doesn't matter at all what

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is in your original message.

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<li>Mail "unsubscribe" to the <em>list</em>-request address and

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reply to the confirmation message.

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<li>Use a mail reader that understands the standard

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List-Unsubscribe header, then just click on that header and

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reply to the confirmation message.

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<li>Visit your <em>user's options page</em>, click on the

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Unsubscribe button and reply to the confirmation message.

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Note that with Mailman 2.1, mailing lists can be personalized,

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which means the url to your options page can be included in

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the footer of every message you get from the list (digests

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currently excluded).

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</ul>

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What could be simpler?

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<h4>Mailman's password mechanism provides zero security.</h4>

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I disagree with Jamie about the utility of Mailman's passwords because

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in general they do prevent malicious people from changing your

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subscription options out from under you. But I will also concede that

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he has a point about password management by naive users, so you should

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know that it is trivial to disable monthly password reminders, either

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on a list-wide basis or on a per-user basis.

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<p>Monthly password reminders serve additional purposes though: they

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remind you of lists you are on which you may have forgotten about,

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they remind you about how to get unsubscribed from such lists, and

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they offer an opportunity for lists to cull their membership of

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non-functioning addresses. In Mailman 2.1, the monthly reminders can

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be sent out with <a

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href="http://cr.yp.to/proto/verp.txt">VERP</a>-like envelopes, Mailman

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can unambiguously parse any bounces from dead addresses, and can use

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this information to automatically disable or delete disappeared

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members.

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<p>When you subscribe to a mailing list, the password is completely

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optional -- omit it and Mailman generates a random one for you. You

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generally don't need to know your password except if you want to

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change your delivery options, e.g. to temporarily disable delivery

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while you're on vacation, or to switch to digest delivery, subscribe

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to topics, etc. For simple membership management (subscribing and

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unsubscribing), you never need to know it. The user options

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<b>are</b> useful.

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<h4>Web-based subscriptions</h4>

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If all you care about is web-based subscriptions, then yes it's pretty

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easy to set up a simple CGI to do this. It's just as easy to do with

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Mailman as any other mailing list software. Note though, that

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Mailman's web interface is much more sophisticated because you can do

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nearly all the list configuration through the web. Okay, this is of

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primary benefit for list owners rather than list members, and Jamie's

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rant is focused on the member experience. Note though, that Mailman's

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subscription page also gives the user the option of selecting a

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default language (for multilingual lists) and their preferred delivery

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mechanism (digests or regular delivery).

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