--On March 7, 2006 12:09:01 PM -0500 Francoise Becker <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:

> On 7 Mar 2006 at 9:45, Michael Loftis wrote:
>
>> Well not in Linux there isn't.  It's all completely un-documented.  Near
>> as  I can tell it only supports ODBC and then in windows.  Still, no
>> documentation anywhere that's usable as far as I've ever found.  Not to
>> mention how the heck does it manage a list in the database, etc.  Since
>> we  strictly enforce double-opt-in, etc.
>
> I really recommend you look at Maestro. It has all the database
> management built-in, i.e. maintaining opt-in lists with more data
> fields than just email and name. And then mail-merge messages are
> very easy to do, and targeting emails is also much easier (the
> "target group" wizard builds the necessary SQL query for you through
> a series of menus -- no SQL to learn).

We've no interest in doing *anything* related to email marketing, that's 
most of the point.  I was asking about Maestro for our FAQ/response 
template for customers that want to.  It's too much of a headache, there's 
no such thing as a clean list, etc.

> But BTW, LISTSERV 14.5 on Linux DOES support unixODBC, as well as
> Oracle and DB2.

Ahh, that helps, didn't know.

> But still, why go to all the trouble of writing DISTRIBUTE jobs
> (which as we've seen in the "Mail-merge Format" thread is a
> challenge), when L-Soft has already gone to the trouble of writing a
> very easy to use and very powerful interface for it?

Because it's very expensive, as is ListServ.  :)  Besides, it's not our 
line of business and we have no interest in it.  Our customers often do, 
and we want to provide them with a list of options.

> Frankly, I don't know why anyone except the L-Soft programmers
> working on Maestro would still be messing with DISTRIBUTE jobs.
> That's what Maestro is for.

Like I said, Maestro is expensive.  Especially when you add on the cost of 
ListServ, and if you want to get any sort of performance without a lot of 
tweaking, LSMTP.  Since there's no standard 'merge' format for SMTP 
Daemons, well, except the return path standard of VERP/XVERP which ListServ 
doesn't support either.  I have to do masquerading on my outgoing mail to 
make sure the ListServ probes can be processed when they come back.