[Mailman-Users] Service provider environments

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Brad Knowles writes:

 > We can repeat the mantra -- Mailman was *NEVER* designed to be used
 > in a Service Provider environment, especially not with multiple
 > customers who may have very different needs,

That's technically true, but Mailman has grown a long list of features
that make it attractive to service providers, and it comes pretty
close.  It is not surprising that ISPs (ab)use it.  One big problem
that I see is that the VARs who repackage Mailman in ISP-oriented ways
(principally Cpanel and Plesk) have been unwilling to contribute back
(and even the FAQ deprecating their offerings doesn't seem to faze
them).[1]

AFAIK one of the goals of MM3 is to improve some of the obvious
sticking points, like support for virtual hosting.  That won't help
people who have bad ISPs, but for people where the ISPs are trying but
inexperienced, we should try to remove as many of the traps and snares
as possible.

We also need to improve the administrative interface.  Mark (and you,
inter alia) have spent *way* too much time typing five levels of menu
navigation into answers to "how do I ..." questions.



Footnotes: 
[1]  I'm very aware that's easier said than done, and likely to be
quite expensive for them to get their features into upstream Mailman,
compared to a quick hack that works in their intended environment.
Still, they should *try*.