>I am one listowner, ignorable. On the other hand I have an aggregate
>subscribership for my lists of 7,000+ , many using the aberrant mail
>systems. If I cna get *them* to complain to the software vendors perhaps
>attention will be paid. Little me? Forget it. One or two hundred
>listowners? Forget it. Hundreds of thousands of list subscribers being
>cut off from their lists because the listowners refuse to tolerate this
>any longer? Maybe you have something to which they will pay attention.
This is just not the way things work. If a couple hundred thousand people
send mail to some feedback address, regular mail-bomb prevention scripts
will be triggered and you will end up with a couple hundred thousand deleted
messages no impact whatsoever. If the press picks it up, there might be some
real impact, but it will be because the press picked it up, which will be because
someone tipped them (they don't get the messages to the suggestion mailbox).
But most of the time, you'll find that changes are made through cooperation
between software vendors. You may have noticed that Exchange, while not
perfect, is a LOT more LISTSERV-friendly than MS Mail used to be. This is
no coincidence, MS approached us for advice and we worked together on
that. They did not do everything we suggested but the final result is that
Exchange has maybe 5% of the mailing list related problems there used to
be in MS Mail. Likewise we also made changes to LISTSERV specifically
for Exchange. This has benefited everyone. One key to this kind of
relationship is that you do not make trifling requests, not unless you want
to wear out your welcome.
Anyway, if there are serious issues with a MS product (or any other
commercial product that is still being enhanced and maintain), we can
try to take them up with the vendor for you. Not all vendors listen or care,
but most do. Again, only problems with the latest/current version of products
which are not obsolete have a chance of being considered. If anyone who
is familiar with the SHARE requirement process would volunteer to collect,
support and format these requirements, it would be ideal. Alternatively
L-Soft could do this, but experience suggests that it is best if customers who
are directly impacted by the specific problem are involved in writing up the
requirement. You are welcome to submit your requirements directly to
vendors, but in order for L-Soft to use its direct development contacts, we
must (1) have a clear understanding of the issues so that we can support
the request to the vendor (for instance by saying things like "We think 20%
of users are potentially impacted by this and the impact is a minor but daily
nuisance") and (2) agree that the requirement is non-trifling. Any requirement
for which the vendor has been mail-bombed or otherwise harassed will be
automatically rejected as we do not want to give the impression that we
approve of this type of behaviour.
Eric
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