> From:         Jeffrey R Kell <JEFF@UTCVM>
> Or, alternatively, teaching MAILER to DISTRIBUTE.  Before you laugh, if
 
Sounds like a great idea to me.  Although LISTSERV should never try to become
what MAILER is (as I believe Eric talked about) it does make sense that the
DISTRIBUTE function could be migrated to MAILER.  Except as noted below, it
seems to me that DISTRIBUTE is more FUNCTIONALLY related to MAILER than it
is to LISTSERV (although STRUCTURALLY about even).
 
Note: what happens to ordinary files that are to be DISTRIBUTED.  Would
MAILER/DISTRIBUTE also distribute them, or would LISTSERV keep that function?
Perhaps MAILER could be written in such a way as to make the choice of
combining or splitting functions a local option.  Based on how things are
organized here, splitting would make sense.  Based on how things were at OSU
when I worked there, combined would make sense.
 
Who would write it?  MAILER looks to me like it needs to be started over for
a function like that to be added, but it can't just be added to LISTSERV since
the performance of MAILER needs to be at the assembler level.  If I were to do
it, I certainly would start fresh, but then I again I say that about all the
programs :-)