--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.