Mailman is an open source software for managing electronic mailing system, e-discussion and e-newsletters. This software can be installed on any website that supports CGI scripts.

Mailman is developed by Barry Warsaw and is being used in various forms since its inception in 1997. The quality of the software is being enhanced by years of modifications, tuning and additions. Since 1997, Mailman has been downloaded by more than 35000 times because of its reliable, robust and stable e-mail service.

Though Mailman is an open source commercial software, the source code is available only to valid license holders, who can modify it if interested. Unlike other open source products Mailman is not available to non-licensees.

Mailman comes in two editions – Standard Edition and professional Edition. The current version of GNU Mailman is 2.1.6, released on May 2005.

Following are the important features of Mailman:
· Multi-lingual support and Real name support
· Through-the-web list management
· Enhanced password management
· Mail delivery with full-proof bounce detection
· Emergency moderations
· Content filtering, topic filtering, Spam protection
· Enhanced membership management and Newsgroup support
· Built-in archiving
· Invitation
· Auto-responders
· Privacy control
· Search feature

Mailman runs on any Linux or Unix-like operating system and is compatible with most email and Web servers, mail readers, and Web browsers. Mailman is written in the Python programming language, with a little bit of C code for security.