[geeks] LISTSERV, the beginning of mailing lists?

[Gregory Leblanc]

On Sat, 2001-11-03 at 01:01, William S. wrote:
> I just joined yet another mailing list. More email
> to sift through but fun none the less.
> 
> What I noticed is that it was done through LISTSERV.
> I don't think I see many mailing lists being run that
> way any more. I see an occasional "majordomo" but that
> is not as popular these days either.

I'm on a couple LISTSERV lists, but not many.  Maybe only 3-4.

> So, some questions come to mind:
> 
> Was LISTSERV the first method of setting up mailing lists?

No clue.

> Why isn't it used that often any more? (Same question
> for "majordomo").

Because mailman is clearly better.  It provides a pretty decent email
interface for subscriptions/help, it has an archiver built in (which
sucks, but whatever), and it's got a nice web interface, that anybody
can use.  I think that the list management options need to be re-vamped,
and broken down into "advanced", and "simple", but that'll happen
eventually.  There are other areas that it could be better too, but it's
still better than anything else that I've found.  
	Greg