Patching GNU Mailman to make reply-to munging a per-user option

[Ben Scott]

On 10/27/07, Ben Scott <dragonhawk at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ... there doesn't seem to be an easy non-one-size-fits-all
>> solution for mailing lists, as implemented in mailman, anyway.
>
>   Hmmm.  Reply-To munging as a per-user option in the MLM (mailing
> list manager).
>
>   'scuse me, I've got to look at the Mailman code and see how hairy it is.

  Somewhat hairy (shut up, Ted :) ).  (Like a *lot* of code, it makes
the mistake of describing the code but not the data structures.  Code
always does what the code says to do (though the "why" often needs
documenting), but the semantics implied in one's data structures are
rarely self-explanatory.  But I digress.)

  But before I got too far into it, it occurred to me that someone
else may have already done this.  And they have.  Back in 2002.  When
it got ignored.  :-(  Anyway, anyone with more Python and/or
Mailman-internals experience than me (not hard, I have almost none)
want to have a go at adapting the code to work today?  We're running
Mailman 2.1.9 on our server.

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-developers/2002-March/011068.html

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-developers/2002-March/011096.html

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-developers/2002-March/011104.html

  If no one else wants to try, I will prolly have a go at beating it
with a hammer until it fits, but I'd really prefer someone who knows
Python and/or Mailman better than I.

  For those wonder what the big deal is: Every list I've ever been on
has arguments about whether Reply-To munging should be used.  This
will let us cancel those arguments by letting each user pick their
poison.  (Then we can all go back to arguing about distros or text
editors or whatever.)

-- Ben