"Then why don't you spare us the lecture and just do it? I mean, if a cretin like me needed a few years to do it on such a stone age operating system as VM, it can't take an intelligent person like you more than a couple hours on a modern system." I don't believe I offered any value judgements on you, VM or LISTSERV. I'm unacquainted with VM, but I'd guess UNIX offers improvements, such as the ability to shellscript, which represent evolutionary advantages. I am ac- -quainted with LISTSERV, and it's a fine package that does what it is sup- -posed to. I have no idea if you are a cretin or not, and I don't care to know, either. It might take a few hours to develop a shellscript, but that's what shell- scripting is for ... prototyping software. It would continue to evolve for years afterward. 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. One thing VM's LISTSERV has which my shellscript might not would be ability to synchronize with other LISTSERVs. This, IMHO, is a good reason to wait for the Standard. Besides, the word is - according to this very list - that there already *is* a Unix LISTSERV. The whole idea of Unix is not to have to reinvent already-existent software, but, rather, to reuse existing modules. >If there is an Internet group meeting on the topic of LISTSERV, I would >predict that they are meeting to agree on a common command syntax so >that all LISTSERVs behave identically, much as FTP and telnet behave >identically under diverse operating systems. "The problem of the group in question is that it is mostly comprised of (1) people whose goal in life is to tell other people how to run their life and the whole world and (2) people like you, who talk a lot but don't do much." Well, Eric, since you aren't in any better position to know what I do than I am to know whether you are a cretin or not, if I were you I would be less forthcoming in my personal opinions, where they stray away from technology. You haven't the slightest. Right now, my goal is getting a PC running a BSD flavor of Unix at home. After I have a suitable development environment, then, yes, you might see a LISTSERV-like piece of software running on the net from my system - but 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. -- richard ===== -- richard childers [log in to unmask] 1 415 506 2411 oracle data center -- unix systems & network administration Klein flask for rent. Inquire within.