--On Sunday, 12 March, 2006 13:02 -0800 Dave Crocker
<dcrocker(_at_)bbiw(_dot_)net> wrote:
John,
The
second was Eric Thomas's "Revised LISTSERV" -- a complete
rewrite, preserving only some concepts and syntax. That is
probably the one you are thinking of. Eric is, as far as I
know, still around and selling a descendant of that code as a
commercial product and service. My memory is fading, but I
don't believe Eric's code has ever been public.
Sorry for being unclear. Yes, I mean Eric's version. (Or any
equivalent functionality.)
I had already checked with him. Even HE does not know where
any early versions are, but he believes that the source code
was widely distributed.
Certainly the documentation was.
Indeed, given that sending "help" commands to the thing could
easily bury one in documentation. I may have those
documentation files around somewhere, but it would require
considerable digging; we should have an offline conversation if
you want me to try doing that. I believe that the source was
distributed. However, Eric was, if I recall, proprietary enough
about it from a fairly early date, my observation about "not
public" still applies. Because LISTSERV was a key BITNET
facility, if I wanted to find code, I'd check with Educause
(then Educom), any vestiges of CREN you can find around, and the
universities that were running large versions of the thing with
many lists: Cornell, CUNY, and Princeton come immediately to
mind as likely candidates, as are several institutions in France
and Germany.
john