[Mailman-Users] Mailman archive messages(not rm, but install!)

[Brad Knowles]

At 7:52 AM -0500 12/8/06, Alan McConnell quoted me:

>>  Uh, what version of Mailman is that?  I thought that Mailman had
>>  fully integrated Pipermail along with the base code, for many years
>>  now?  Are they running Mailman 1.x or something?
>
>	mm 2.1.5 .  But under Debian, so it has experienced/endured the
>	Debian security upgrade procedures.

Okay, now that is one of the most bizarre things I've heard of in a 
very long time.  I cannot comprehend how they could possibly ship a 
version of Mailman 2.1.x that does not automatically include the 
bundled Pipermail component.

Congratulations -- I've been in this business long enough that I 
don't get too many surprises like this anymore.  Yet, Mailman has 
recently provided me these kinds of surprises twice in the last 
couple of weeks or so.

There should definitely be some sort of prize that you win as a 
result of your experience.

>	You are exactly right.  It is, like so many other things<g>, a
>	political problem.  PatriotNet is a small ISP; its founder died,
>	the widow sold to another, totally incompetent, company . . . but
>	now it has passed to yet another company, which is known to have
>	Linux/Unix competent people, and which makes good noises in re
>	tech support.

Ahh.  PatriotNet.  I had heard good things about them years ago, but 
it's been a while since I've seen that name.

Interesting to see what has since happened to that company.

>  Since you say "mbox format" and since my MUA is mutt, set up to use mbox,
>  I think/hope/believe I am OK . . .  but time will tell.

In terms of the mbox format itself, you should be fine.

I'm seriously thinking of switching back to mutt myself (after being 
away for so many years), because Qualcomm/Eudora have decided to kill 
the product as a separate program and the next major version is going 
to be based on the Thunderbird platform.  Of course, if I wanted 
Thunderbird, I'd be using Thunderbird.  I have over 6GB of archives 
in Eudora's slightly modified version of mbox archives, and I'm not 
looking forward to what I'm going to have to do in order to move to a 
different program.  I may take a look at what happens with Eudora 
after the change, I might go ahead and switch to "real" Thunderbird, 
or I might switch to a different program altogether -- which would 
almost certainly be mutt.  I haven't decided yet.

But regardless of what happens to me, you should definitely be fine with mutt.


I think your issue is going to be the level of support that you get 
from the people who have yet to be brought in to help manage the 
systems, and whether or not they have the level of clue and talent 
required to be able to properly import your mailboxes for the 
archives.

As far as that goes, about all I can do is to wish you luck, and then 
we all wait to see what happens.

>  Many thanks to you and to the others who have chimed in.  This E-list is
>  wonderful; run the way a help list should be IMHO.

I'm pretty much always glad to help, if I can -- as permitted by time 
and available resources.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at shub-internet.org>

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