[315] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
A simple Unix Listserv clone exists
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Gilmore)
Thu Mar 7 16:47:34 1991
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 91 13:10:50 PST
From: gnu@toad.com (John Gilmore)
To: com-priv@psi.com, gnu@toad.com
In-Reply-To: your article <15735@hoptoad.uucp>
Brian Kantor <brian@ucsd.edu> mentioned some months ago that he was
testing a Unix implementation of listserv at UCSD. Indeed, "vrfy
listserv" at ucsd.edu shows that mail to this address is piped to a
program called /usr/mail/listserv. Also, the file "pub/listserv.tar.Z"
is available on ucsd.edu by anonymous FTP.
I looked at it, and it's about 5K of compressed C source, doing a
really very simple job: adding and removing people from mailing lists,
and responding with summaries of the available lists. It does permit
anyone to add or delete any address, which is a feature as far as I'm
concerned (I, like Barry, often subscribe as "listname@toad.com" so I
can redirect to netnews, add other local users, etc, on demand).
Apparently it does not offer archive access and other features, though
given the size of the program, it's pretty easy to hack in new features
or glue it to one of the "netlib" or "archive-server" programs. It
could probably be rewritten in a 100-line perl script.
Certainly sounds like grist for a major new Federal initiative! Perhaps
we should get specific funding for LISTSERV implementation added to the NREN
bill. :-)
John Gilmore
PS: This also points up the need for resource location services, since
none of the other participants in this conversation seemed to know
about this minor resource. I also checked in the "archie" database of
commonly available FTP sites (rlogin quiche.cs.mcgill.ca -l archie),
which listed this file as well as a 16K "listserv.tar" that has
unfortunately disappeared from vacs.uwp.wisc.edu:/pub/tmp.
