This article is about a specific electronic mailing list known as LISTSERV®. See electronic mailing list for description of the generic email-based mailing lists.

LISTSERV® is the first electronic mailing list software application, originally developed by Eric Thomas in 1986 for the Bitnet computer network. It was a key service on that network.

The word "listserv" is now often used as a generic term for any email-based mailing list application of that kind. L-Soft international, Inc. has a registered trademark for the term, and argues that it is not legal to use the term commercially except in reference to the L-Soft product; using the word in the generic sense is not a trademark infringement, but does contribute to trademark genericide. The standard generic terms are electronic mailing list or email list.

See also

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• Majordomo (software), an open source mailing list manager (MLM)
• Massively distributed collaboration

External links

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• LISTSERV product information on L-Soft's website
• Manuals and documentation
• History of LISTSERV

mailing lists

LISTSERV