On Mon, 12 Sep 1994, Bert Deivert wrote:
> ... Could anyone point me to an FTP
> site where there is freeware, shareware, or such software for setting up a
> listserver on a UNIX machine?
 
I am in the middle of writing a "what MLM's are available?" section for
the Majordomo FAQ, so I think I have fairly current information.  If
anyone knows of other list managers I don't mention below, would you
please write a note to me?
 
Of the MLM's below, ListProc and TULP were specifically written to act
like LISTSERV.  ListProc differs from LISTSERV in many details, though,
and given the public animosity between its author and Eric Thomas, the two
will likely diverge more.  TULP doesn't do much, but what it does do acts
a lot like LISTSERV.
 
LISTSERV and ListProc, in their current versions, are commercial
software.  The others are freely available (except perhaps for MailBase,
which I haven't been able to find out about).
 
(This paragraph is very subjective, please don't flame me) LISTSERV,
ListProc, MailBase, and Almanac are designed on the "bigger is better"
philosophy ... that is, they try to include most everything a user would
want, within one package.  The others follow the traditional Unix
philosophy of "a tool for every purpose, and link them together when
necessary."  (Ironically, Majordomo, which most clearly follows this
philosophy, is written in Perl, a kitchen-sink language.)
 
Of the programs for which you can get source code, all but Majordomo and
SmartList are written in C; Majordomo is written in Perl and SmartList is
written using the rule processing provided by the (wonderful) local
delivery package "procmail" -- which is written in C.
 
So, here's my list of MLM's.  By the way, I have installed and used only
Majordomo and ListProc 6.0c, though I've looked very carefully at LISTSERV
and have taken a more casual look at many of the other packages.  I would
appreciate hearing anyone's opinion on any of these packages; it will help
me write my FAQ section (which is getting farther and farther behind now
that I'm in school again :( )
 
Norm
 
 
**LISTSERV for Unix <ftp://spcvxa.spc.edu/listserv>
 
The ftp site above is for *evaluation* kits for LISTSERV, available for
VMS and several different Unices.  For sales information, send mail to
[log in to unmask]  You're already on the LISTSERV discussion list :)
 
**ListProc  <ftp://cs-ftp.bu.edu/pub/listserv/current_version.Z>
 
The ftp site above where you can find the source to the last no-charge
version of ListProc (6.0c).  Later versions (currently it's at 7.01) are
available at a charge from CREN.  Discussion of 6.0c is on
[log in to unmask]; to subscribe, send a "sub unix-listproc Your Name"
command to [log in to unmask] Versions 7.0 and up are discussed on
[log in to unmask]; to subscribe, send a "sub cren-list Your Name" command
to [log in to unmask]  I don't know the address for sales information, but
a mail exchanger exists for the domain listproc.net .. perhaps
"[log in to unmask]"?
 
**Majordomo  <ftp://ftp.greatcircle.com/pub/majordomo/majordomo.tar.Z>
 
Majordomo is written in Perl, so you'll need to have Perl 4.036 on your
system already.  The primary Majordomo discussion list is
[log in to unmask]; subscribe by sending "sub majordomo-users
[log in to unmask]" to [log in to unmask]
 
**SmartList
<ftp://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/packages/procmail/procmail.tar.gz>
and
<ftp://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/packages/procmail/SmartList.tar.gz>
   (replace ".gz" with ".Z" if you don't have the GNU gzip package)
 
discussion lists are [log in to unmask] and
[log in to unmask]; subscribe to either by sending mail
with a SUBJECT LINE of "subscribe" to procmail-request or
[log in to unmask]
 
**TULP  <ftp://lut.fi/pub/tulp/tulp-3.0.1.tar.Z>
 
TULP is discussed on [log in to unmask]; to subscribe, send a
"sub listnix Your Name" command to [log in to unmask]
 
**Almanac <ftp://ftp.oes.orst.edu/pub/almanac-1.5.1b.tar.Z>
 
To subscribe to the Almanac discussion list, send mail to
[log in to unmask] with "subscribe alm-core-mg" in the message body.
 
**MailBase
 
Widely used on JANET (in the UK) but I don't know who wrote it or where
to get it.  Please let me know if you find out.
 
 
MLM's in general are discussed on [log in to unmask]; to
subscribe send a "sub list-manager your-address" command to
[log in to unmask]