Listar goes GPL!
Hello,
After a good deal of discussion on the matter, the excellent Listar
mailing list server (www.listar.org) has gone to GPL! (It is possible
that a few .h files may be under the LGPL, this has yet to be
decided). The next release will be under GPL.
As somebody that runs a lot of lists, I'm really excited about
Listar. I've already debianized it and it's been in potato for some
time now. Now that it's GPL'd, I hope to be spending more time with
it and hopefully others may want to as well. I think Listar makes a
good replacement for list managers with Y2K issues or no updates in 2
years (ie, smartlist) :-)
For those of you not familiar with it, Listar provides an extremely
powerful command mode ala listserv, compatibility with most Majordomo
and Smartlist-style requests, dynamically-loadable modules that add
functionality, automatic bounce handlers, etc. It also manages to
have a more secure model than Majordomo while still using a
passwordless design for admin functions. Details on
www.listar.org; from that site:
Listar Features List
* Does not require special privileges to run.
* Majordomo and some other mailing list packages require root or
daemon permissions to run.
* Listar has an SMTP client library built in, allowing it to speak
directly to your local mailserver.
* Listar likes to run suid to a user, but the user does not have to
have any special permissions; the suid is just to maintain file
ownership.
Secure remote administration module
* Listar allows you to perform administrative functions over e-mail
in a secure manner (preventing spoofing of admin addresses). No
passwords to remember; just send the 'admin' command and receive
back a secured admin job request to fill out and return.
* Remote administration mode can also be disabled, for sites wanting
that extra bit of security. (Although thus far, no one has
reported finding a way to spoof Listar's authentication.)
Multiple platform support
* Though Listar is developed under Linux, the developers make an
effort to ensure that it runs on SunOS 4.x, SunOS 5.x, FreeBSD,
and BSDI. If you have more platforms for us to try, let us know!
* Easily expandable on-the-fly.
* Listar has the option to be compiled in 'dynamic module' mode,
where much of the functionality is in dynamically loaded objects.
This allows new functionality to be readily coded, compiled, and
dropped into the 'modules' directory without having to take down a
running Listar installation.
* Listar uses runtime definitions for everything - user flags,
commands, processing hooks - which allows a new module to hook in
and create functionality pretty much wherever it desires.
Full source code
* It's developed under Linux, did you even have to ask? :)
Fast support turnaround
* Even though the developers of Listar do it entirely in their spare
time and for no money, they try to maintain a fairly quick
turnaround on feature requests and support mails.
Subscriber-customizable
* Listar, like L-Soft Listserv, allows subscribers to set options on
their subscription. In the case of Listar, this takes the form of
'flags'. Modules can define new flags for users to set. For
example, the Digest module defines 'DIGEST' as a flag users can
set on themselves, which causes them to receive digested versions
of lists instead.
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