"MM" == Marc MERLIN <marc_news@vasoftware.com> writes:
MM> Barry has made the choice to call the project he maintains
MM> "Mailman, the GNU Mailing List Manager"
MM> That's his right, it's his softwareJust a minor correction, because I agree with Marc that in general, this kind of discussion is off-topic for this list.
John Viega invented Mailman back in oh, 1997 or so (my earliest email on the subject is circa mid-97). At the time it wasn't even called Mailman -- I don't think John had a name for it. Because it was written in Python and because we were so frustrated with Majordomo, we adopted it for the sigs on python.org. John originally had a very simple and very liberal license.
As the s/w developed, there was some discussion about what to call it, and how to license it. I believed at the time that the GPL was the best license to choose, and that we could increase its visibility, publicity, and popularity by positioning it within the GNU project. The GPL isn't right for everything (e.g. I think it would be fatally wrong for Python itself to ever be GPL'd), but it's perfect for Mailman. Ultimately, it was John's decision, but I did lobby for that outcome, and I think I was right about how the GNU project would help Mailman get to where it is today. For that reason, I have no problem calling it "GNU Mailman" where pressed to be precise.
sleepi-ly, -Barry