> My ISP uses Majordomo for lists, and charges for running a list. In
> addition to the above, what can I tell them to convert to LISTSERV?
> Emphasis on things from the sysadmin's point of view.
>
> TIA,
> Philo
>

Well, there's a *reason* they use majordomo instead of listserv.  Everyone
knows listserv is a better program by about 20000%--they may tell your
differently, but I don't know of anyone that says "I'll use majordomo because
it is the best list management program out there."  They use it because
majordomo doesn't cost them anything.  It costs system resources and such, but
the program itself is free.

You can ask your sysadmin to switch to listserv, but chances are they just
don't want to pay for it or they would have been using it in the first place.

The benefits of listserv are:

1) scales well, can handle large numbers of massive lists while being quite
happy do be doing so.

2) all kinds of spam filters and screens

3) automated handling of many error messages

4) can be set to ask new subscribers to confirm they want to subscribe.
Doesn't seem like a big deal, but the easiest okeydoke hack is to sub some
unsuspecting schmuck to all the lists served at an isp's majordomo, making the
listowners go back and unsub said poor schmuck.

5) listserv is a professionally written and maintained program, instead of a
collection of perl scripts everyone and their mother has modified.

6) If I'm not mistaken, listserv runs as a server.  It sits there waiting for
mail to come in, queues up the mail for delivery, and goes about deliverying it
very efficiently.  Majordomo, on the other hand, is executed when a message
arrives, a new instance of majordomo runs for each incomming message, and
majordomo just dumps message in bulk to the mail system for delivery.  So if
you have a lot of lists with a lot of messages, all those instances of
majordomo running at once chews up memory, and all those messages in bulk being
tossed into sendmail chews up more memory there and eats the hell out of disk
space.

Basically, your sysadmins can choose to spend their money to license listserv
or to try to keep up with majordomo consuming their network.

Jason

Jason