Mailing List Managers?

greyrax asks: "So I'm trying to convince someone to go open source for their list manager. They're about to upgrade to an expensive proprietary solution. With about 400,000 subscribers to this newsletter, a database back-end would certainly be helpful. Bounced address management and easy unsubscribes is important (I've read Smartmail vs. MailMan comparison here). Virtual host support and a web interface are desirable. Any thoughts from the /.ers since this thread last year would be appreciated."

Comments

I really like Mailman...

[drdink]

Although the largest list I've ever served with Mailman was 116 members, I really think Mailman has potential to do what you want. It has all the features you mentioned, though the database backend isn't SQL and I'm assuming that is what you meant.

Re:I really like Mailman...

[Fweeky]

Can you turn off it's silly password authentication stuff and make it use email like every other MLM in existance?

That monthly subscription "reminder" is the second most braindead feature of any MLM I've seen - the first being some Win32 one which stripped Message-Id. If every list I was on sent them, once a month I'd get a flood of 51 "reminders" all containing a plaintext password.

Re:Qmail

[Electrum]

And before anyone complains about the license of QMail/ezmlm, yes, that sucks. The license is a royal pain in the butt, as it doesn't allow direct distribution of modifications, only patches. It still works though, and works really well.

qmail does not have a license and does not need one:

http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html

``What does all this mean for the free software world? Once you've legally downloaded a program, you can compile it. You can run it. You can modify it. You can distribute your patches for other people to use. If you think you need a license from the copyright holder, you've been bamboozled by Microsoft. As long as you're not distributing the software, you have nothing to worry about.''

I use something called sympa

[Yarn]

It has a nice web interface for my non-techie friends but behaves as a proper MLM for everyone else. It can use a mysql backend too

Re:Qmail

[dasunt]

So what is http://cr.yp.to/qmail/dist.html then?

That refrence you give talks about licenses with regards to restricting rights of a consumer - basically, shrink wrap licenses that limit (perhaps illegally) my ability to resell a product or modify it for my means. That's wrong. However, even though I may have the right to resell my copy of Windows XP Retail, I don't have the right to make 100 copies and sell them.

Qmail, along with DJBDNS (and a lot of other DJB's software) has a copyright that restricts distribution of modified binaries. Which means, if DJB get's hit by a truck tomarrow and dies, Qmail's developement is legally frozen.

Re:Qmail

[dubl-u]

And before anyone complains about the license of QMail/ezmlm, yes, that sucks.

qmail does not have a license and does not need one[...]

Please don't be obtuse. The legal meaning is as you say, of course. But the common meaning is, "the terms under which the program is available." In the common sense, qmail has a license. And the OP is right, it's a pain.

DJB's insistence on keeping an iron grip on qmail and keeping it at v1.0 for five years is what made me finally change over to Postfix. It's in the same league as qmail regarding security, reliability, and having a good architecture. But unlike qmail, you don't have to apply patches to get needed features. And the configuration files are actually readable and helpful to admins.

Three months after conversion, my only regret is that I didn't switch from qmail to Postfix sooner.