Mailman Considered Beneficial

From d40e44f63df4587e7a6f9ee779e3f2ccb1651a41 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: bwarsaw Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 18:00:30 +0000 Subject: A rebuttal to JWZ's article --- admin/www/jwzrebuttal.ht | 88 ++++++++++++++++++ admin/www/jwzrebuttal.html | 225 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ admin/www/rant-links.h | 3 + 3 files changed, 316 insertions(+) create mode 100644 admin/www/jwzrebuttal.ht create mode 100644 admin/www/jwzrebuttal.html create mode 100644 admin/www/rant-links.h diff --git a/admin/www/jwzrebuttal.ht b/admin/www/jwzrebuttal.ht new file mode 100644 index 000000000..74b9212a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/admin/www/jwzrebuttal.ht @@ -0,0 +1,88 @@ +Title: Mailman Considered Beneficial +Author: Barry Warsaw +Author-email: barry@python.org +Links: links.h rant-links.h + +

Mailman Considered Beneficial

+ +Jamie Zawinski posted an article in 2002 titled Mailman Considered +Harmful. I know Jamie and respect him, but I respectfully +disagree with his assessment. You'd be worried if I didn't, eh? + +

To give Jamie the benefit of the doubt, I believe he was reviewing +older versions of the Mailman software, where some of his complaints +may have been appropriate. Here is a rebuttal to his +article, based on +the +latest stable release of Mailman 2.1, unless otherwise specified. + +

Mailman is a pain in the ass for the end user.

+ +Jamie must have reviewed a pre-2.0 version, because Mailman releases +since 2.0 have implemented the "sane" recipe. Indeed it would be +insane not to. I may be mad, but I'm not insane. In fact, in Mailman +2.1, there are several ways to get unsubscribed, any one of which will +work just fine: + +

Send a message to list-leave or list-unsubscribe and + reply to the confirmation message. It doesn't matter at all what + is in your original message. +
Mail "unsubscribe" to the list-request address and + reply to the confirmation message. +
Use a mail reader that understands the standard + RFC 2369 + List-Unsubscribe header, then just click on that header and + reply to the confirmation message. +
Visit your user's options page, click on the + Unsubscribe button and reply to the confirmation message. + Note that with Mailman 2.1, mailing lists can be personalized, + which means the url to your options page can be included in + the footer of every message you get from the list (digests + currently excluded). +

+ +What could be simpler? + +

Mailman's password mechanism provides zero security.

+ +I disagree with Jamie about the utility of Mailman's passwords because +in general they do prevent malicious people from changing your +subscription options out from under you. But I will also concede that +he has a point about password management by naive users, so you should +know that it is trivial to disable monthly password reminders, either +on a list-wide basis or on a per-user basis. + +

Monthly password reminders serve additional purposes though: they +remind you of lists you are on which you may have forgotten about, +they remind you about how to get unsubscribed from such lists, and +they offer an opportunity for lists to cull their membership of +non-functioning addresses. In Mailman 2.1, the monthly reminders can +be sent out with VERP-like envelopes, Mailman +can unambiguously parse any bounces from dead addresses, and can use +this information to automatically disable or delete disappeared +members. + +

When you subscribe to a mailing list, the password is completely +optional -- omit it and Mailman generates a random one for you. You +generally don't need to know your password except if you want to +change your delivery options, e.g. to temporarily disable delivery +while you're on vacation, or to switch to digest delivery, subscribe +to topics, etc. For simple membership management (subscribing and +unsubscribing), you never need to know it. The user options +are useful. + +

Web-based subscriptions

+ +If all you care about is web-based subscriptions, then yes it's pretty +easy to set up a simple CGI to do this. It's just as easy to do with +Mailman as any other mailing list software. Note though, that +Mailman's web interface is much more sophisticated because you can do +nearly all the list configuration through the web. Okay, this is of +primary benefit for list owners rather than list members, and Jamie's +rant is focused on the member experience. Note though, that Mailman's +subscription page also gives the user the option of selecting a +default language (for multilingual lists) and their preferred delivery +mechanism (digests or regular delivery). diff --git a/admin/www/jwzrebuttal.html b/admin/www/jwzrebuttal.html new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1b8eeb480 --- /dev/null +++ b/admin/www/jwzrebuttal.html @@ -0,0 +1,225 @@ + + + + + + + + + +Mailman Considered Beneficial + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

+ + + +

Mailman Considered Beneficial

+ +Jamie Zawinski posted an article in 2002 titled Mailman Considered +Harmful. I know Jamie and respect him, but I respectfully +disagree with his assessment. You'd be worried if I didn't, eh? + +

To give Jamie the benefit of the doubt, I believe he was reviewing +older versions of the Mailman software, where some of his complaints +may have been appropriate. Here is a point-by-point rebuttal to his +article, based on +the +latest stable release of Mailman 2.1, unless otherwise specified. + +

Mailman is a pain in the ass for the end user.

Send a message to list-leave or list-unsubscribe and + reply to the confirmation message. It doesn't matter at all what + is in your original message. +
Mail "unsubscribe" to the list-request address and + reply to the confirmation message. +
Use a mail reader that understand the standard + RFC 2369 + List-Unsubscribe header, then just click on that header and + reply to the confirmation message. +
Visit your user's options page, click on the + Unsubscribe button and reply to the confirmation message. + Note that with Mailman 2.1, mailing lists can be personalized, + which means the url to your options page can be included in + the footer of every message you get from the list (digests + currently excluded). +

+ +What could be simpler? + +

Mailman's password mechanism provides zero security.

Monthly password reminders serve additional purposes though: they +remind you of lists you are on which you may have forgotten about, +they remind you about how to get unsubscribed from such lists, and +they offer an opportunity for lists to cull their membership of +non-functioning addresses. In Mailman 2.1, the monthly reminders can +be sent out with VERP-like envelopes, Mailman +can unambiguously parse any bounces from dead addresses. It can use +this information to automatically disable or delete disappeared +members. + +

Web-based subscriptions

+ +If all you care about is web-based subscriptions, then yes it's pretty +easy to set up a simple CGI to do this. It's just as easy to do with +Mailman as any other mailing list software. Note though, that +Mailman's web interface is much more sophisticated because you can do +nearly all the list configuration through the web. Okay, this is +primarily beneficial for list owners rather than list members, and +Jamie's rant is focused on the member experience. Note though, that +Mailman's subscription page also gives the user the option of +selecting a default language (for multilingual lists) and their +preferred delivery mechanism (digests or regular delivery). + +

+ diff --git a/admin/www/rant-links.h b/admin/www/rant-links.h new file mode 100644 index 000000000..173d7f2b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/admin/www/rant-links.h @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ + +

Rants

Mailman Considered Beneficial -- cgit v1.3.1