[Mailman-Users] Re: Mailman: Co-operation with UNESCO

[Barry A. Warsaw]

Looks like Satya already followed up, and this was posted a while
back, but I'll just add a few tidbits.  I'm reading this on gmane...

>>>>> "VP" == Vásárhelyi Pál <p.vasarhelyi at kkt.bme.hu> writes:

    VP> UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
    VP> Cultural Organization) wishes to promote the use of freware
    VP> products/free services in the field of education in developing
    VP> countries, presenting them on its web-site in a harmonised way
    VP> and obtaining royalty-free use, when this needs specific
    VP> negotiations. The Budapest University of Technology is
    VP> assisting UNESCO in this task.

Cool!  Sounds like a good cause.

    VP> Understanding that Mailman is available as Open source, it
    VP> would be highly appreciated if you could confirm, that
    VP> educational institutions co-operating with UNESCO in
    VP> developing countries will have the right to download and
    VP> eventually modify it under GPL.

Yes of course.  GNU Mailman is GPL'd so you are free to do whatever
you want with it, including modifying it and redistributing the
modifications.  Hopefully, if the mods are useful to the general
Mailman community, you'll donate them back, or course. :)

GNU Mailman depends on Python, and while that is not GPL'd, the Python
Software Foundation licence that governs all modern stable versions of
Python also allow you to do anything you want with it.  Here's the
license for the freshly minted Python 2.2.2 release:

http://www.python.org/2.2.2/license.html

    VP> Should this be possible, we would need information on the
    VP> following characteristics of the software tool: - state of
    VP> development: is there a stable version?

Yes, Mailman 2.0.13 is the current stable release.
    
    VP> Date of Last update?

Mailman 2.0.13 was released on 29-Jul-2002.
    
    VP> - support available or planned, such as FAQ, demo version,
    VP> user manual, teacher guide, discussion forum,

As Satya mentioned, there is vibrant community support.  I hope to
work out some new documentation for the Mailman 2.1 release (currently
in very late beta testing).
    
    VP> - adaptability
    VP> to local requirements, such as possibility of personalisation,
    VP> using languages else than English,

Yes, but you'll want MM2.1 for these.
    
    VP> availability of counterpart
    VP> to assist external users.

I'm sorry, I don't know what that means.
    
    VP> .  - Hardware and Informatics knowledge required for use

General system administration knowledge is required, including web
server and mail server configuration experience, as well as general
Unix tool building knowledge.
    
    VP> - Download possibilities, such as
    VP> server-uptime.

Are you asking about what kind of statistics you can gather?  There's
lots of useful information in the log files, but digging it out is an
exercise left to the reader, at the moment.

    VP> Your kind co-operation would be a valuable contribution by
    VP> your institution and country to the development of education
    VP> in countries, where this is the crucial task to be solved in
    VP> order to reduce poverty and its consequences.

    | Thanks and best regards
    | Pal Vasarhelyi

Good luck, and you can contact me directly if you have any other
questions.

-Barry