Ok I'll bite, walk us through a mental picture of a mail server setup that one could set and forget it amongst a rack of servers in their basement. I would assume it would be a *NIX OS of some sort, as they were really easy to set up as mail servers with little maintenance and long reboot requirements. So you set up cron jobs for updates and reboots, add an array of disks for space (amazing they haven't all failed by now) and let it whirrr? I would imagine the early days would have been active involvement of the sysop(s) but by now, does the sysop even know which server it is and what its running? The dust this thing must be coated in too...
Well, I remember the person that did it, he used to run a small ISP back when you could do such a thing. He provided hosting and other services, and would provide a connection-for-rent if you had an event or something that you needed internet services or had a need for public access terminals during the event, when that was a thing.
I guess I have to assume that it's received some maintenance over the years, or maybe even exists as a container running on some other system. Looking at GNU mailman, it has to have had some update over the years, mailman is only 22. But who knows? I remember seeing the dude at a small hamfest maybe 10 years ago, and that was the last time I had any interaction with him.
(post is archived)