This is the only part of 2142 that MLM authors need to worry about:
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Mailing lists have an administrative mailbox name to which add/drop
requests and other meta-queries can be sent.
For a mailing list whose submission mailbox name is:
<LIST@DOMAIN>
there MUST be the administrative mailbox name:
<LIST-REQUEST@DOMAIN>
Distribution List management software, such as MajorDomo and
Listserv, also have a single mailbox name associated with the
software on that system -- usually the name of the software -- rather
than a particular list on that system. Use of such mailbox names
requires participants to know the type of list software employed at
the site. This is problematic. Consequently:
LIST-SPECIFIC (-REQUEST) MAILBOX NAMES ARE REQUIRED,
INDEPENDENT OF THE AVAILABILITY OF GENERIC LIST SOFTWARE
MAILBOX NAMES.
---------------------------
So all 2142 is saying is that you need to support a -request address for each
list, IN ADDITION TO whatever package-specific addresses you create. This is
neither unclear nor difficult to implement. Any developer who hasn't done it
could do so in 10 seconds without harming the rest of their work. Any developer
who is (a) aware of the RFC and (b) refuses to support a -request address
anyway, is just being rude, and the good news is that the rest of the Internet
community can (and likely will) promulgate field fixes (maybe nothing more than
an entry in /etc/aliases) to bring the recalcitrant packages into compliance.
RFC2142 is clearly one of those semi-wishful "LO! I bring order to chaos"
documents that appear now and then, but it's not downright evil. Armchair
demagogues would do well to remember that the purpose of RFC's, like the
Internet as a whole, is interoperability. There have always been people who act
as though interoperability is a quaint, wimpy hobby, but over the long haul it
always wins.
