On Tue, 11 Jun 1996 19:55:29 -0500 Craig Gjerde said:
>On some list recently, someone who worked with PLATO at U Illinois back in
>the 60-70 era (Doug Woolley or similar name) wrote about how he practically
>invented discussion groups.
I don't know about this. uunet (the old dial version) was doing news
for a very long time before most of the other stuff got started.
>Someone who never deletes old mail (we know who you are!) might have it.
>
>Craig
>
>You wrote:
>>'nother question: Is there a history of LISTSERV...how it came to be?
>>or a history of discussion groups? I have been looking and not found
>>very much...I can find the usual stuff about how the internet got
>>started...but not the inception of listserver lists...
The original listserv, was written by EDUCOM at the old BITNIC. The
programmer who wrote the code was Ricky Hernandez. It was sort of
clunky, but some of us ran it anyway since it filled a need. I have
looked, but I can't find a date for the initial release.
The following, by Eric Thomas is extracted from a file I found on an old
disk. It was a LISTSERV MEMO file, apparently distributed with one of
the earlier versions of his "revised" listserv.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Revised List Processor (LISTSERV@FRECP11), Release 1.5d
----------------------------------------------------
(c) Eric Thomas 1986 Ecole Centrale de Paris
***********************************************
* What is LISTSERV? What is Revised LISTSERV? *
***********************************************
LISTSERV stands for "list server"... but what does that mean? Origi-
nally, LISTSERV was a mailing-list server which was designed to make
group communication easier. The first version of LISTSERV, written by
EDUCOM and installed at BITNIC under the userid of LISTSERV, offered
basic "mail-exploding" capabilities. People with a common interest (eg
network protocols, issues related to handicapped people in education,
system administration problems) were grouped in a list which was then
stored on LISTSERV. They could then communicate with each other by sen-
ding mail to a special network address (eg UG-L@BITNIC). Any piece of
mail sent to these special user-ids would then be automatically distri-
buted by the list server to each and every person on the list. You did
not have to know all the names and network addresses of the people sub-
scribed to the list. The usual messages sent by the mailing systems
when mail has been successfully delivered were sent to LISTSERV -- a
big relief for the sender... People could join a list by asking the
"list coordinator" (actually the person who maintains the list server)
to be added to the list and it was a very convenient way to meet people
and participate in interesting discussions/forums.
As LISTSERV became popular and the number of lists grew, it started
to show some weaknesses and limitations. Even though LISTSERV was ins-
talled at a central site, it generated a very important traffic because
there was an important number of people from distant nodes in the net-
work. If there were ten persons of the same node on a given list, it
sent ten copies of each piece of mail to the node. List maintenance be-
came a problem because of the evergrowing number of requests for sub-
scription. Mail headers became bigger and bigger, and 30 lines was not
an uncommon size. Some non-VM users had troubles accessing the server,
could not send commands nor mail to it and received files in a format
their system was not able to read. Non-mail files could not be sent to
a list. The server was often caught looping on a rejection mail from a
network mailer. No help or command description was available, and
unknown commands were ignored. Sending a "HELP" command did not
produce any kind of answer from the server.
Revised LISTSERV is a brand new list processor which was developped
at the Ecole Centrale de Paris in France to overcome the restrictions
and lack of functionnality of the first version of LISTSERV. It retains
the basics of the old LISTSERV and provides good ascending compatibili-
ty, while offering more sophisticated functions, helpfiles and more
user-friendliness. Revised LISTSERVs can be linked together to create
peer lists for better network efficiency in a way that is nearly trans-
parent for the user. Users can send a command to the server to subscri-
be to a list. For more information about the differences between the
BITNIC-type LISTSERV and Revised LISTSERV, send the following command
to the nearest Revised LISTSERV: Info FEATures (or just: I FEAT)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
And from the same time frame, there is the file LSERV INFO2 from BITNIC.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
BITNET Network Information Center
(INFO@BITNIC)
EDUCOM PO Box 364, Princeton NJ 08540 609-734-1878
LISTSERV
BITNIC's Mail List Server
Sending the same message to more than one person occurs com-
monly enough that most electronic mail/messaging systems
have special provisions for it. Multiple userids in the TO
(destination) field is the simplest approach; and some sys-
tems allow the user to define a list of recipients, then re-
fer to the list by name in the TO field.
Though lists represent a convenient way to handle multiple
addressees, significant problems do sometimes arise. Fre-
quently lists become so long that mail headers are longer
than the message itself. Also, individual members of a
group that uses lists often must create and maintain those
lists themselves. If group membership changes, several
lists for the same group may then exist, each with different
entries.
In the BITNET messaging environment, LISTSERV provides mail-
ing list capabilities that overcome these problems and make
group communications quite straightforward.
Anyone who can send mail to BITNIC can use LISTSERV. To send
to a list use the list name for the userid and BITNIC as the
site name.
LISTSERV will then generate a copy of the message for each
individual userid in the named list. Each recipient re-
ceives the same text but the TO fields contain individual
userids along with a comment indicating the message was sent
to a list and identifying the list name. This shortens the
headers yet still notifies the recipient that the message
was sent to a list. Of course, the recipient can communi-
cate a response to the group using the same list. All list
members use the same list for group communications, thus al-
leviating the problem of multiple versions of a list within
a group.
BITNET users may request that their own lists be available
via LISTSERV on BITNIC. Alternatively, users may acquire the
LISTSERV code from BITNIC to be run at their own site
(VM/CMS sites with REXX). Send requests for more informa-
tion, to establish a list, or for the LISTSERV code to
[log in to unmask] Please include your name, userid and node
name.
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