[Techtalk] Re: Majordomo Replacement?

[Art McGee]

Options are:

MAJORDOMO 2.0: very poor license agreement and development
transparency. Not true open-source and is still labeled as
beta software. However, some sites are using it very happily
(QueerNet), usually legacy Majordomo 1.0 users. Has all the
modern features, but it squandered momentum and market-share
and people have basically moved on to other packages. Most
people don't even know that Majordomo 2.0 exists.

SYMPA: all the built-in features you need, plus, data
is stored in a database format for integration with other
apps. Main drawback is that installation is difficult, the
interface is still a bit cryptic and poorly designed, and
it's still very buggy. If you need to create lists that
are tightly integrated with an organizational database,
then I'd give this a try.

MAILMAN 2.1: The best non-commercial MLM. Many people have
residual impressions of Mailman versions prior to 2.1, but
the latest release has just about ALL the features you could
ask for, and although it doesn't have Sympa's backend, that
is being planned for future releases. This is definitely the
best current choice for online dialogue and discussion.

EZMLM: very popular MLM for newsletters and one-way
announcement lists. Falls short in features for discussion.
Also, as someone mentioned, the method it uses to determine
a person's address can often cause problems with subscribing,
unsubscribing, and posting for end-users.


Art McGee
Principal Consultant
Virtual Identity
Communications+Media+Technology
1-510-967-9381