Developers of Sympa

[Jeff Abbott <address@concealed>]

On Oct 27, 2005, at 3:39 AM, Aumont - Comite Reseaux des Universites  
wrote:

> > > > Sympa, according to my understanding, uses the
> > > > $LISTNAME-request address to get in touch with the actual
> > > > person or persons running the list, the list owners.
>
> We probably could do some change in Sympa to fix that, but what ?  
> It's easy to say what we should not do :
>
> * change the semantic of existing address : it may create more  
> confusion.

I agree, but the problem is how can we preserve the old way for  
systems and sites that want or need it unless we do what we shouldn't  
do in your second bullet point.

> * introduce some more parameters so anyone could choose how to deal  
> with this : it would create a infinite variety of solution and  
> would not make user life more simple.

This is true, and sympa.conf is already beyond being simple so  
anything we can do to avoid having to increase its complexity any  
further would be highly desirable.

> So we will invite other MLM software developpers to participate to  
> a discussion in order to find a agreeement and may be propose a  
> RFC. (I can't beleive that there is no RFC to specify a minimum  
> requirement for mailing list, for exemple a common way for  
> unsubscribtion !)

I worry that involving the authors of other mailing list managers,  
all of whom presumably think they've done things roughly the right  
way, will overcomplicate things and bog down progress on trying to  
resolve this issue, though I do agree that it's odd that there isn't  
already an RFC defining standard mailing list addresses.

I suppose the core problem I'm trying to overcome is that, here at  
Duke, user habit of sending email to $LISTNAME-owner is going to  
result in their mail disappearing.  I'd be all for adding an  
additional alias in our local list_aliases.tt2 that points $LISTNAME- 
owner to $LISTNAME-request, but then that would break bouncequeue  
since $LISTNAME-owner is used as the envelope sender on outgoing  
messages.  Would it be more practical to change the envelope sender  
from $LISTNAME-owner to, say, $LISTNAME-bounces (which is what  
Mailman uses) and use that for outgoing mail?  Maybe that would skirt  
the difficulty and complexity involved with adding additional  
configuration options, and the more I think about it the more I do  
agree with Bill Costa's comment last night that the RFC is vague  
enough on where $LISTNAME-request should end up that it could be  
considered the proper address for contacting a list owner.  That  
wouldn't help our users, though, which is my concern and thus why I  
bring up the possibility of using a different address for the  
envelope sender and bouncequeue.

Thanks,
Jeff

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