[Mailman-Developers] big list

[John W Baxter]

At 12:15 -0500 3/8/2002, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
>It would be really cool if we could get a bunch of MTA authors
>together (I only care about the open source ones <wink>) to define a
>protocol for letting the MTA doing the stitching.  I think Postfix,
>and probably Exim support a way to do this for the envelope sender,
>but the really interesting bits happen when the body of the message
>can be personalized.  The outgoing MTA's the most efficient place to
>do this, but you have to get it the information it needs to chew on.
>
>I know there's been some talk about subsuming the outgoing
>functionality into MM, but I see such a bulk mailer/stitcher as a
>separate project, that could be integrated into MM through a new
>DELIVERY_MODULE.  I don't expect to have time to work on that myself,
>so there's an opportunity for someone who wants to contribute.

I suspect you'll get a lot of resistance from MTA authors to the idea of an
MTA (mail transfer agent) messing with the bodies of the messages.  That's
MUA work.

This is more for a purpose-built tool which knows how to send messages to
the world's MTAs and how to prepare messages, but does not know anything
about receiving messages from general local senders or from the world.  In
other words, a potentially useful different product.

Aside:  how far we've come from the old mainframe LISTSERV, the network of
which carefully sent one copy along with a list to addresses to various
neighbors "near" the addressees for further distribution.  So quite likely,
only one copy crossed the Atlantic...possibly one one went from Chicago to
Florida, etc etc.


As to VERPing a big list with the *current* tool:  don't (if it hurts,
don't do it, and I doubt whether throwing enough more hardware at the
50,000 address list is feasible).  VERP a bunch of little lists roughly
sequentially.  The originator of the thread might try the first 1,000 and
see whether 50 1000 member lists will work.  *Particularly* when nearly
50,000 bounces are expected (the list is bouncers from other lists, per the
initial message).

  --John
-- 
John Baxter   jwblist@olympus.net      Port Ludlow, WA, USA