I can't check www.list.org right now, but if I remember correctly, during Mailman 2.0 installation, no note was made about Apache needing a
<Directory $prefix/archives/public/> Options FollowSymLinks
</Directory>
which is required if such symlink following is turned off by default elsewhere in the Apache configuration file.
I realize this is getting into pretty nebulous territory, but it might save someone some hair-pulling and is easy to mention. -- Cheers! Chris Ryland Em Software, Inc. www.emsoftware.com