[Mailman-Users] query re "message has implicit destination"

[Brad Knowles]

At 1:21 AM +0200 2006-08-31, Bretton Vine wrote:

>>  As I said above, this should never have happened as far as I can tell.
>>  I'm sure one of the developers with more knowledge about this will
>>  correct me if I am wrong.
>
>  I'm hoping for more information so I can prepare a summary of the situation.
>  Clearly there are two potential answers:
>
>  1. We don't have the full information from the original poster
>  2. We don't have the full information in terms of documentation or skills

I would say that both situations are possible, and maybe even likely.

>  If you're in the business of 'making things happen' via mailing lists, and
>  over 10 years experience in doing so which of the above is more relevant?
>  (it helps to have good mentors who can see the impact of collaborative
>  principles and not just the ideologies available to implement them -- the
>  textbook answer is seldom the one they want to hear)

Well, I've been using Unix for over twenty-two years, a professional 
Unix system administrator for almost seventeen, specializing in DNS 
and Internet e-mail administration for over a decade, including a 
two-year stint as the Sr. Internet Mail System Administrator for 
America Online, and one of the first people to do some serious 
large-scale anti-spam work that was contributed back to the user 
community (with the approval of my boss).  I've been involved in 
administering large mailing lists for over a decade, and I've 
assisted with some of the largest mailing lists on the planet (as of 
the time of their creation).

I've been a technical reviewer of a couple of O'Reilly books, 
technical reviewer of a couple more technical Internet-related books 
from other publishers, I've written an article on the Network Time 
Protocol that will be published in the October issue of _;login:_ 
magazine (published by the USENIX Association), a six-part series on 
spam-fighting "best practices" that will soon be published on the 
LOPSA.org website, and I've got a book of my own that I'm working on 
writing.

And with all that, I know I'm not the most experienced or talented 
person on the Mailman project.  I'm just a mail operations guy who 
helps to run the python.org mail system and co-moderator of some of 
the mailing lists on python.org -- including this one.

So, does my opinion count?

>  That one person's opinion is the foremost expert on Internet policy on the
>  African continent. And yes, we've been running lists for quite a long time
>  already. And that person pays the bills, and only funds what produces
>  results so their opinion counts considerably if I want to remain employed
>  <grin>

The person in question wouldn't happen to be named András Salamon 
(see <http://www.dns.net/andras/>), would he?  If so, András and I go 
way back (back to the time when he was originally working to create 
the DNS Resources Directory), and if he's got any questions he can 
come straight to me.

Last I had heard, András had left the day-to-day management work down 
in .ZA, and had gone on to establish one of the leading venture 
capital firms down there, but I haven't checked in with him lately, 
so maybe he's off doing something else now.

>  When someone asks "but why is this enabled by default" an answer of "but you
>  can turn it off" is seldom sufficient in satisfying their curiosity.

The answer is that it's turned on by default because that's the 
safest choice.  Period.  End of discussion.

Now, the option does exist so that you can decide to change that 
setting, if you prefer.  But you're not going to change the default 
that's built-in to the code as it is shipped.  And I'm pretty sure 
you're not going to get a different answer from the core developers.

>  Some people want options and flashing lights and a machine that goes "ping"
>  while others actually want to know why the lights flash in the first place.
>  I work for the latter <wink>

Yeah, but sometimes the answer is that the light flashes because it 
was programmed to flash, and there is no deeper answer to be had. 
People who ask those kinds of questions need to understand when 
they've been given the complete answer, even if it is less 
enlightening than they wanted.

-- 
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

  Founding Individual Sponsor of LOPSA.  See <http://www.lopsa.org/>.