Majordomo (software)
Encyclopedia
Majordomo is a mailing list manager
(MLM) developed by Brent Chapman of Great Circle Associates. It is written in Perl
and works in conjunction with sendmail
on UNIX
and related operating systems. In Latin
, "major domo" means "head of the house"; in English, the word is used to refer to a large household's chief servant.
The current version of Majordomo is 1.94.5, released Jan. 19, 2000.
The last released version of majordomo does not work with Perl 5.10 because it uses deprecated language constructs. Therefore it cannot be used on any modern UNIX system that ships with a recent Perl
version.
, in an era when many people had access to email but didn't have WWW access. As a result, tasks such as subscribing and unsubscribing are handled by sending mail messages, a process that may seem cumbersome today.
There are front-ends, such as MajorCool, to provide a web interface. Many mailing lists still use Majordomo. There is work being done to completely rewrite
Majordomo with a focus on keeping the familiar email interface while greatly improving the web interface and other features. This coding effort is referred to as Majordomo 2 and is currently being used by the OpenBSD
project among others.
Before Majordomo, mailing lists were maintained manually, with a list owner adding and removing participants by editing a text file. Most, however, moved to commercial mailing list hosting services, often with a stipend of $100 or more paid to the list owner by the hosting service in exchange for the transfer. Most of the hosting providers were subsequently bought out by Yahoo!
, and merged into its Yahoo! Groups
service.
A commercial product used during the same era is LISTSERV
. Other open-source mailing list software that gained popularity in recent years are GNU Mailman
. There is mailing list software that works with qmail
, ezmlm
(and the improved version, ezmlm
-idx).
Electronic mailing list
An electronic mailing list is a special usage of email that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. It is similar to a traditional mailing list — a list of names and addresses — as might be kept by an organization for sending publications to...
(MLM) developed by Brent Chapman of Great Circle Associates. It is written in Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
and works in conjunction with sendmail
Sendmail
Sendmail is a general purpose internetwork email routing facility that supports many kinds of mail-transfer and -delivery methods, including the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol used for email transport over the Internet....
on UNIX
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
and related operating systems. In Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, "major domo" means "head of the house"; in English, the word is used to refer to a large household's chief servant.
The current version of Majordomo is 1.94.5, released Jan. 19, 2000.
The last released version of majordomo does not work with Perl 5.10 because it uses deprecated language constructs. Therefore it cannot be used on any modern UNIX system that ships with a recent Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
version.
History
Majordomo has been in widespread use since 1992, predating the popularity of the web browserWeb browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
, in an era when many people had access to email but didn't have WWW access. As a result, tasks such as subscribing and unsubscribing are handled by sending mail messages, a process that may seem cumbersome today.
There are front-ends, such as MajorCool, to provide a web interface. Many mailing lists still use Majordomo. There is work being done to completely rewrite
Rewrite (programming)
A rewrite in computer programming is the act or result of re-implementing a large portion of existing functionality without re-use of its source code. When the rewrite is not using existing code at all, it is common to speak of a rewrite from scratch...
Majordomo with a focus on keeping the familiar email interface while greatly improving the web interface and other features. This coding effort is referred to as Majordomo 2 and is currently being used by the OpenBSD
OpenBSD
OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995...
project among others.
Before Majordomo, mailing lists were maintained manually, with a list owner adding and removing participants by editing a text file. Most, however, moved to commercial mailing list hosting services, often with a stipend of $100 or more paid to the list owner by the hosting service in exchange for the transfer. Most of the hosting providers were subsequently bought out by Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
, and merged into its Yahoo! Groups
Yahoo! Groups
Yahoo! Groups is one of the world’s largest collections of online discussion boards. The term Groups refers to Internet communication which is a hybrid between an electronic mailing list and a threaded Internet forum, in other words, Group messages can be read and posted by e-mail or on the Group's...
service.
A commercial product used during the same era is LISTSERV
LISTSERV
LISTSERV was the first electronic mailing list software application, consisting of a set of email addresses for a group in which the sender can send one email and it will reach a variety of people...
. Other open-source mailing list software that gained popularity in recent years are GNU Mailman
GNU Mailman
GNU Mailman is a computer software application from the GNU project for managing electronic mailing lists.Mailman is coded primarily in Python and currently maintained by Barry Warsaw...
. There is mailing list software that works with qmail
Qmail
qmail is a mail transfer agent that runs on Unix. It was written, starting December 1995, by Daniel J. Bernstein as a more secure replacement for the popular Sendmail program...
, ezmlm
Ezmlm
ezmlm is a software package for managing electronic mailing lists by Daniel J. Bernstein. It is similar to GNU Mailman and Majordomo but only works with the qmail mail transfer agent. It is released into the public domain....
(and the improved version, ezmlm
Ezmlm
ezmlm is a software package for managing electronic mailing lists by Daniel J. Bernstein. It is similar to GNU Mailman and Majordomo but only works with the qmail mail transfer agent. It is released into the public domain....
-idx).