On Tue, 11 Jun 1996 19:55:29 -0500 Craig Gjerde said: >On some list recently, someone who worked with PLATO at U Illinois back in >the 60-70 era (Doug Woolley or similar name) wrote about how he practically >invented discussion groups. I don't know about this. uunet (the old dial version) was doing news for a very long time before most of the other stuff got started. >Someone who never deletes old mail (we know who you are!) might have it. > >Craig > >You wrote: >>'nother question: Is there a history of LISTSERV...how it came to be? >>or a history of discussion groups? I have been looking and not found >>very much...I can find the usual stuff about how the internet got >>started...but not the inception of listserver lists... The original listserv, was written by EDUCOM at the old BITNIC. The programmer who wrote the code was Ricky Hernandez. It was sort of clunky, but some of us ran it anyway since it filled a need. I have looked, but I can't find a date for the initial release. The following, by Eric Thomas is extracted from a file I found on an old disk. It was a LISTSERV MEMO file, apparently distributed with one of the earlier versions of his "revised" listserv. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Revised List Processor (LISTSERV@FRECP11), Release 1.5d ---------------------------------------------------- (c) Eric Thomas 1986 Ecole Centrale de Paris *********************************************** * What is LISTSERV? What is Revised LISTSERV? * *********************************************** LISTSERV stands for "list server"... but what does that mean? Origi- nally, LISTSERV was a mailing-list server which was designed to make group communication easier. The first version of LISTSERV, written by EDUCOM and installed at BITNIC under the userid of LISTSERV, offered basic "mail-exploding" capabilities. People with a common interest (eg network protocols, issues related to handicapped people in education, system administration problems) were grouped in a list which was then stored on LISTSERV. They could then communicate with each other by sen- ding mail to a special network address (eg UG-L@BITNIC). Any piece of mail sent to these special user-ids would then be automatically distri- buted by the list server to each and every person on the list. You did not have to know all the names and network addresses of the people sub- scribed to the list. The usual messages sent by the mailing systems when mail has been successfully delivered were sent to LISTSERV -- a big relief for the sender... People could join a list by asking the "list coordinator" (actually the person who maintains the list server) to be added to the list and it was a very convenient way to meet people and participate in interesting discussions/forums. As LISTSERV became popular and the number of lists grew, it started to show some weaknesses and limitations. Even though LISTSERV was ins- talled at a central site, it generated a very important traffic because there was an important number of people from distant nodes in the net- work. If there were ten persons of the same node on a given list, it sent ten copies of each piece of mail to the node. List maintenance be- came a problem because of the evergrowing number of requests for sub- scription. Mail headers became bigger and bigger, and 30 lines was not an uncommon size. Some non-VM users had troubles accessing the server, could not send commands nor mail to it and received files in a format their system was not able to read. Non-mail files could not be sent to a list. The server was often caught looping on a rejection mail from a network mailer. No help or command description was available, and unknown commands were ignored. Sending a "HELP" command did not produce any kind of answer from the server. Revised LISTSERV is a brand new list processor which was developped at the Ecole Centrale de Paris in France to overcome the restrictions and lack of functionnality of the first version of LISTSERV. It retains the basics of the old LISTSERV and provides good ascending compatibili- ty, while offering more sophisticated functions, helpfiles and more user-friendliness. Revised LISTSERVs can be linked together to create peer lists for better network efficiency in a way that is nearly trans- parent for the user. Users can send a command to the server to subscri- be to a list. For more information about the differences between the BITNIC-type LISTSERV and Revised LISTSERV, send the following command to the nearest Revised LISTSERV: Info FEATures (or just: I FEAT) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- And from the same time frame, there is the file LSERV INFO2 from BITNIC. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- BITNET Network Information Center (INFO@BITNIC) EDUCOM PO Box 364, Princeton NJ 08540 609-734-1878 LISTSERV BITNIC's Mail List Server Sending the same message to more than one person occurs com- monly enough that most electronic mail/messaging systems have special provisions for it. Multiple userids in the TO (destination) field is the simplest approach; and some sys- tems allow the user to define a list of recipients, then re- fer to the list by name in the TO field. Though lists represent a convenient way to handle multiple addressees, significant problems do sometimes arise. Fre- quently lists become so long that mail headers are longer than the message itself. Also, individual members of a group that uses lists often must create and maintain those lists themselves. If group membership changes, several lists for the same group may then exist, each with different entries. In the BITNET messaging environment, LISTSERV provides mail- ing list capabilities that overcome these problems and make group communications quite straightforward. Anyone who can send mail to BITNIC can use LISTSERV. To send to a list use the list name for the userid and BITNIC as the site name. LISTSERV will then generate a copy of the message for each individual userid in the named list. Each recipient re- ceives the same text but the TO fields contain individual userids along with a comment indicating the message was sent to a list and identifying the list name. This shortens the headers yet still notifies the recipient that the message was sent to a list. Of course, the recipient can communi- cate a response to the group using the same list. All list members use the same list for group communications, thus al- leviating the problem of multiple versions of a list within a group. BITNET users may request that their own lists be available via LISTSERV on BITNIC. Alternatively, users may acquire the LISTSERV code from BITNIC to be run at their own site (VM/CMS sites with REXX). Send requests for more informa- tion, to establish a list, or for the LISTSERV code to [log in to unmask] Please include your name, userid and node name.