Note: this  isn't a flame at  Ralph or even  a direct answer to  just his
message. I  am taking this  opportunity to answer  a lot of  private mail
I've got about PROFS and 1.7d.
 
Mail from PROFS  will be a problem until everyone  has installed 17D-001o
(or any  later fix which involves  LSWPLIB). To put it  diplomatically, I
find it  a bit rude of  the PROFS folks to  assume that it is  ok to send
PROFS-formatted messages  to users  at non-PROFS sites.  Software (namely
PUMP)  is  available to  convert  outbound  PROFS  messages to  a  format
understood by all systems. LISTSERV has  been kind enough to do something
reasonable with PROFS  notes for 6 years,  in spite of the  total lack of
documentation regarding this format and its inherent brain-damaged nature
(dates in aa/bb/yy format  where the meaning of aa and  bb depends on the
source country, header fields in the  local language, etc). 6 years ought
to have been enough time to  evaluate and install PUMP or equivalent. Now
there  is an  unfortunate problem  due to  a bug  which was  not detected
because no  PROFS site beta-tested  the new code and  I do not  run PROFS
here, and thus cannot test it myself.
 
I am  getting a  lot of  private complaints,  sometimes worded  as though
LISTSERV was a third-party mailing list/conferencing package for PROFS. I
wrote a fix for  the problem within hours of the bug  report, and that is
the extent  of what I  consider to be my  responsibility in this  case. I
will certainly not issue a new release  just for a PROFS problem. I am no
Overlord of the Galaxy and have no power to force people to install fixes
they feel they  don't need. My advice, again, is  that installing PUMP to
fix the problem forever for all your  users and for all servers (not just
LISTSERV) is a much  better use of your time than  trying to convince 250
maintainers to install a fix for a problem that does not affect their own
users.
 
  Eric