[Mailman-Developers] Responsiveness

[Chuq Von Rospach]

At 6:35 PM -0800 12/14/00, J C Lawrence wrote:

>  > except I see this as still part of the MLM, since it's the tool
>>  doing the MLM->MTA handoff, not part of the MTA itself.
>
>We need to define what an MLM is and does:

Here's how I define the MLM: it has access to a subscriber database, 
and when a piece of email is  received it is in charge of deciding 
who it is sent to, and generating the content necessary to have ti 
delivered. Optionally, it manages the subscriber database.

that means that the MTA sees that the mail is addressed to a list and 
hands it off to MLM. The MLM owns it until it hands the outbound mail 
to the MTA for delivery. it does everything except acceptance into 
the system and delivery back out.

>Actual delivery of messages, MTAs, transports, authentication
>mechanisms, membership definitions, account definitions, etc, are
>really outside of its purview.

The MLM is really an overriding architecture that handles content 
flow from reception through delivery (but not including delivery), 
and all of the support subsystems to make that possible. The key one 
is subscriber maintenance, but archival, digesting, bounce processing 
are all also part of the MLM archictecture, even if they're managed 
by external subsystems through a defined API. what's internal and 
what's external comes down to needs and how strongly you want stuff 
integrated. As we webify everything (even email), integration and 
(dare I say it! I dare!) convergence tend to encourage that strong 
integration (and that we're even thinking of using Zope pieces here 
shows how far that integration is infiltrating real life already...)

-- 
Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com)
Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com)

We're visiting the relatives. Cover us.