On Sun, 5 Jul 1992 09:34:54 PDT Richard Childers <[log in to unmask]>
said:
 
>I'm unacquainted with  VM, but I'd guess UNIX  offers improvements, such
>as the ability to shellscript, which represent evolutionary advantages.
 
You are  quite clearly unacquainted  with VM, so  why do you  assume that
it lacks "shellscripts"?
 
>I am acquainted with LISTSERV, and it's a fine package that does what it
>is supposed to. (...)  I doubt it actually took you  a few years, unless
>you  had  to write  the  mail  delivery agent  and  develop  all of  the
>protocols as well.
 
You are clearly not acquainted with  LISTSERV either. Yes, it did take me
a few years, because LISTSERV isn't a 200-lines program that implements a
handful of  commands to  edit SMTP  alias files. In  fact, LISTSERV  is a
pretty large application.
 
                            REXX code: 28734
                            Assembler:
                                   V1: 10047
                                   V2:  7480
                                Total: 17527
                            VS Pascal: 10160
 
                            Code (V1): 38781
                            Code (V2): 17640
                                    -> 56421 lines
 
>Besides, the word is - according to  this very list - that there already
>*is* a Unix LISTSERV.
 
And  once again  you are  talking about  something you  know very  little
about, something you have just heard  rumoured on a mailing list but have
no direct  knowledge of.  Sorry, there  is no  unix version  of LISTSERV.
There are  a number  of unix shells  to edit SMTP  alias files  and their
authors  do insist  on calling  them listserv,  in spite  of their  total
incompatibility and much more limited  functionality. Due to this kind of
misinformation, an important executive stated  at a RARE meeting (RARE is
a  european state-sponsored  networking organization)  that LISTSERV  had
already been ported to unix and thus it is no longer an asset of networks
like BITNET or EARN.
 
>I would want  it to conform to  the burgeoning standard, and  it is from
>this  standard that  the people  on  this list  are able  to advise  one
>another across a range of operating systems.
 
Wrong list. Try [log in to unmask]  This one is about maintaining
LISTSERV lists, not about discussing burgeoning standards.
 
  Eric