Is it very difficult to setup a simple mailing list?

One central email address to send to, multiple recipients.

[HughMungus]

I've seen and been on mailing lists where there are a bunch of people on it, but, when you reply to "the list" you are actually replying to something like, "[e-mail]". So I want to setup something like this for a special project. I'm imagining that when the server gets an email to "mailinglist" that it would basically just re-send the message to everyone on the list.

Is this very difficult or even advisable using PHP's mail function?

[timster]

PHP's mail function will let you send mail, but to receive it you'd need to install PHP's IMAP functions.
[us4.php.net ]

I was thinking of doing that recently but changed gears after looking into it a bit. To send announcements, people forms post like they would on these forums. The users for are savvy enough that's not a problem.

Beyond not having to install and learn the additional package, here are a few reasons I did it this way:
- Less concern about spam
- Server doesn't have to check for email periodically
- No worries about incompatible email (HTML vs. non HTML)
Also, one user thanked me for making it so she could send messages without an email client. I reckon she thought that was extra work.

Just my 2¢.

[encyclo]

It's Python, not PHP, but I've used GNU Mailman before:

[gnu.org...]

It's free software from the GNU project: it's easy to set up and administer and nice and stable, so if it fulfils your need it will save you reinventing the wheel. :)