The cgiemail home page

Welcome to the cgiemail home page. For detailed information, consult one of the following pages:

• The cgiemail webmaster guide introduces the software and gives details about downloading and installing it.
• The cgiemail ISP page lists web-hosting services that already have cgiemail.
• The cgiemail user guide gives complete instructions for using the software.
• The cgiemail example page will aid you in the design of your own forms.

Information that pertains both to webmasters and to users follows.

1. Where do I turn for help?
2. Why are you giving this software away?
3. This is great! How can I thank you?

Status of cgiemail, December 2002

The original author of cgiemail, Bruce Lewis, is no longer working for MIT. Although cgiemail does have an official maintainer on the MIT I/S staff, there are no firm plans for future development, and support is limited/slow.

For this reason, we recommend that you ask cgiemail questions on the newsgroup noted below before writing to the cgiemail address. We do not personally get to this newsgroup nearly as often as we'd like, but there are generally other readers there who can provide help.

This website will continue to be available, and is updated occasionally.

Updated status of cgiemail, September 2010

Cgiemail is not actively receiving attention. These pages are being left up because they have useful information, but be aware that the usenet newgroup mentioned in "Where do I turn for help?" is now defunct.

1. Where do I turn for help?

If you have trouble using cgiemail, please ask for help on the newsgroup comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi, and include the following information:

1. Be sure to put "cgiemail" in the subject line.
2. Be sure the "Distribution" is set to "world". Too narrow a distribution may prevent people from seeing your message.
3. Include the URL of the form you're having trouble with. If you don't want to post this URL, please try to create another form which exhibits the same problem and post its URL instead. It is much easier for readers to try the form live than to save it locally and modify the ACTION to their own servers. Emailing the HTML isn't good enough.
4. Include the exact error message you're getting - cut and paste if possible.
5. Name the WWW server you're using if you know it (e.g. CERN 3.0).

If you don't have access to Usenet, try Deja News. As a last resort, send e-mail to cgiemail at mit.edu.

2. Why are you giving this software away?

The purpose of this software is to function efficiently and reliably for MIT. It is advantageous to give it away, because people outside MIT are often the best testers of the software. Bugs can be found and fixed before they affect MIT. Bug fixes and improvements have been supplied by non-MIT people, enhancing the software's reliability and functionality. For more details, see Free Software: Solving the Buy/Build Dilemma.

Another good reason for giving software away is that it provides an example that encourages other people to freely share their own software, some of which may be useful to MIT. This spirit of openness and cooperation will make the Internet a better place for everyone.

3. This is great! How can I thank you?

• Help other users who ask cgiemail questions in the comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi newsgroup. To facilitate this, we have a FAQ list with answers you can cut and paste. (If you see something you think should be on the FAQ, let us know.)