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diff --git a/admin/www/jwzrebuttal.ht b/admin/www/jwzrebuttal.ht new file mode 100644 index 00000000..74b9212a --- /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 + +<h3>Mailman Considered Beneficial</h3> + +Jamie Zawinski posted an article in 2002 titled <a +href="http://www.jwz.org/doc/mailman.html">Mailman Considered +Harmful</a>. I know Jamie and respect him, but I respectfully +disagree with his assessment. You'd be worried if I didn't, eh? + +<p>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 +<a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=103">the +latest stable release of Mailman 2.1</a>, unless otherwise specified. + +<h4>Mailman is a pain in the ass for the end user.</h4> + +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: + +<ul> + <li>Send a message to <em>list</em>-leave or <em>list</em>-unsubscribe and + reply to the confirmation message. It doesn't matter at all what + is in your original message. + <li>Mail "unsubscribe" to the <em>list</em>-request address and + reply to the confirmation message. + <li>Use a mail reader that understands the standard + <a href="http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2369.html">RFC 2369</a> + List-Unsubscribe header, then just click on that header and + reply to the confirmation message. + <li>Visit your <em>user's options page</em>, 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). +</ul> + +What could be simpler? + +<h4>Mailman's password mechanism provides zero security.</h4> + +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. + +<p>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 <a +href="http://cr.yp.to/proto/verp.txt">VERP</a>-like envelopes, Mailman +can unambiguously parse any bounces from dead addresses, and can use +this information to automatically disable or delete disappeared +members. + +<p>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 +<b>are</b> useful. + +<h4>Web-based subscriptions</h4> + +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 00000000..b3d86fcc --- /dev/null +++ b/admin/www/jwzrebuttal.html @@ -0,0 +1,228 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<!-- THIS PAGE IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED. DO NOT EDIT. --> +<!-- Sun Mar 23 00:31:21 2003 --> +<!-- USING HT2HTML 2.0 --> +<!-- SEE http://ht2html.sf.net --> +<!-- User-specified headers: +Title: Mailman Considered Beneficial + +--> + +<head> +<title>Mailman Considered Beneficial</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"> +<meta name="generator" content="HT2HTML/2.0"> +<style type="text/css"> +body { margin: 0px; } +</style> +</head> +<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" + marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" + link="#0000bb" vlink="#551a8b" + alink="#ff0000"> +<!-- start of page table --> +<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> +<!-- start of banner row --> +<tr> +<!-- start of corner cells --> +<td width="150" valign="middle" bgcolor="white" class="corner"> + +<center> + <a href="./index.html"> + <img border=0 src="./images/logo-70.jpg"></a></center> </td> +<td width="15" bgcolor="#eecfa1"> </td><!--spacer--> +<!-- end of corner cells --> +<!-- start of banner --> +<td width="90%" bgcolor="#eecfa1" class="banner"> +<!-- start of site links table --> +<table width="100%" border="0" +CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 + bgcolor="#ffffff"> +<tr> + <td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="./index.html">Home</a> + </td> + <td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="./docs.html">Documentation</a> + </td> + <td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="./lists.html">Mailing lists</a> + </td> +</tr><tr> + <td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="./help.html">Help</a> + </td> + <td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="./download.html">Download</a> + </td> + <td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="./devs.html">Developers</a> + </td> +</tr> +</table><!-- end of site links table --> + +</td><!-- end of banner --> +</tr><!-- end of banner row --> +<tr><!-- start of sidebar/body row --> +<!-- start of sidebar cells --> +<td width="150" valign="top" bgcolor="#eecfa1" class="sidebar"> +<!-- start of sidebar table --> +<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" + bgcolor="#ffffff"> +<tr><td bgcolor="#36648b"><b><font color="#ffffff"> +Overview +</font></b></td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="index.html">Home</a> +</td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="features.html">Features</a> +</td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="i18n.html">Internationalization</a> +</td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="otherstuff.html">Rants, Papers, and Logos</a> +</td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="inthenews.html">Mailman in Use</a> +</td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="prev.html">Previous Releases</a> +</td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="bugs.html">Bugs and Patches</a> +</td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="mirrors.html">Mirrors</a> +</td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<tr><td bgcolor="#36648b"><b><font color="#ffffff"> +Rants +</font></b></td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<b>Mailman Considered Beneficial</b> +</td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<tr><td bgcolor="#36648b"><b><font color="#ffffff"> +Email Us +</font></b></td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="mailto:barry@python.org">Barry Warsaw</a> +</td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> + +</td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +<a href="http://www.python.org/"><img border=0 + src="./images/PythonPoweredSmall.png" + ></a> <a href="http://sourceforge.net"><img + src="http://sourceforge.net/sflogo.php?group_id=103" + width="88" height="31" border="0" + alt="SourceForge Logo"></a> +</td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> + +</td></tr> +<tr><td bgcolor="#eecfa1"> +© 1998-2003 +Free Software Foundation, Inc. Verbatim copying and distribution of this +entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. + +</td></tr> +</table><!-- end of sidebar table --> + +</td> +<td width="15"> </td><!--spacer--> +<!-- end of sidebar cell --> +<!-- start of body cell --> +<td valign="top" width="90%" class="body"><br> +<h3>Mailman Considered Beneficial</h3> + +Jamie Zawinski posted an article in 2002 titled <a +href="http://www.jwz.org/doc/mailman.html">Mailman Considered +Harmful</a>. I know Jamie and respect him, but I respectfully +disagree with his assessment. You'd be worried if I didn't, eh? + +<p>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 +<a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=103">the +latest stable release of Mailman 2.1</a>, unless otherwise specified. + +<h4>Mailman is a pain in the ass for the end user.</h4> + +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: + +<ul> + <li>Send a message to <em>list</em>-leave or <em>list</em>-unsubscribe and + reply to the confirmation message. It doesn't matter at all what + is in your original message. + <li>Mail "unsubscribe" to the <em>list</em>-request address and + reply to the confirmation message. + <li>Use a mail reader that understands the standard + <a href="http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2369.html">RFC 2369</a> + List-Unsubscribe header, then just click on that header and + reply to the confirmation message. + <li>Visit your <em>user's options page</em>, 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). +</ul> + +What could be simpler? + +<h4>Mailman's password mechanism provides zero security.</h4> + +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. + +<p>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 <a +href="http://cr.yp.to/proto/verp.txt">VERP</a>-like envelopes, Mailman +can unambiguously parse any bounces from dead addresses, and can use +this information to automatically disable or delete disappeared +members. + +<p>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 +<b>are</b> useful. + +<h4>Web-based subscriptions</h4> + +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). + +</td><!-- end of body cell --> +</tr><!-- end of sidebar/body row --> +</table><!-- end of page table --> +</body></html> |