[Mailman-Users] Wondering how long to send messages

[Brad Knowles]

At 8:55 AM -0700 2004-08-28, Mark Sapiro wrote:

>  I think we're getting a little off track here. I don't think anyone is
>  talking about doing anything that requires code modification.

	Perhaps.

>  The OP merely asked how long must he wait between posting a message and
>  deleting a user from the list to be sure the user still gets the post.

	True enough.

>  I still think that once the "completed" message for the post is in the
>  Mailman smtp log, changes to the subscriber list for non-digest
>  subscribers won't affect who ultimately receives the post. The
>  message-id of the post is in the log, so you can tell if the log entry
>  is for the post in question if that is an issue.

	Right, but then you have to single-thread all deliveries to the 
mailing list, otherwise if you make changes to the subscriber list 
after a given message has been sufficiently processed, you may very 
well catch other messages which are in the middle of being processed 
and which would otherwise be affected by the subscriber change.

	So long as you can single-thread those deliveries to the list, or 
there are naturally long periods of time between when a message is 
submitted and when the next one comes along, you're fine.  Otherwise, 
you've got to come up with some sort of locking mechanism which would 
most likely mean additional code.


	Of course, if there were natural long periods of time between 
when one message was submitted and when the next one came along, 
you're much less likely to be put into a situation where it is 
extremely time critical to know precisely when the message has been 
sufficiently processed that it is now safe to go change the 
subscriber list.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

   SAGE member since 1995.  See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.