[Mailman-Developers] Welcome To "Mailman-Developers"!

[Michael McLay]

I just joined the list and I've looked through some of the messages in
the archive, but not all of them.  In the mm_defaults for data
storing directories are set as:

LIST_DATA_DIR     = os.path.join(MAILMAN_DIR, 'lists')
HTML_DIR	  = os.path.join(HOME_DIR, 'public_html')
CGI_DIR           = os.path.join(HOME_DIR, 'cgi-bin')
LOG_DIR           = os.path.join(HOME_DIR, 'logs')
LOCK_DIR          = os.path.join(MAILMAN_DIR, 'locks')
TEMPLATE_DIR      = os.path.join(MAILMAN_DIR, 'templates')

Is there a reason for not setting them to:

LIST_DATA_DIR     = os.path.join(HOME_DIR, 'lists')
HTML_DIR	  = os.path.join(HOME_DIR, 'public_html')
CGI_DIR           = os.path.join(HOME_DIR, 'cgi-bin')
LOG_DIR           = os.path.join(HOME_DIR, 'logs')
LOCK_DIR          = os.path.join(HOME_DIR, 'locks')
TEMPLATE_DIR      = os.path.join(HOME_DIR, 'templates')

This would keep the data separated from the software.  The
installation instructions would have to be changed to add the lists,
locks, and templates directories to HOME_DIR.  

Is the install script for the next release going to include automatic
creation of directories using autoconfig.

I'm having some trouble do to the odd setup of our servers.  The
sendmail program is running on a system that is separate from the www
server.  

When the command "/home/mailman/mailman/mail/wrapper post gencam" is
run by sendmail it tries to archive the files on a disk that is on a
different system and, if I understand correctly, this can't be done
because setuid won't work across NFS mounts.  

I really like the look of mailman and I've read through many of the
scripts.  It is much easier on the eyes than Majordomo.  The one
conceptual problem I'm having with understanding the product is the
interactions between the mailman user and the deamons.  The
permissions setting for mailman files are not obvious.  Which files
must be writable by "nobody" and which must be writeable by "mailman".
Mailman seems to be in the middle between two deamons and a little
more help in understanding the interactions would be appreciated.
For instance, MAILMAN_DIR/lists/LISTNAME/config.db seems to require
both mailman and nobody to have write permission.

Has bundling mailman as a package been considered? some of the mm_X.py
files look like good candidates to be hidden inside a package.