Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:50:30 -0400 From: Lowell Gilbert <freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org> To: Gonzalo Nemmi <gnemmi@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package? Message-ID: <44aazc8khl.fsf@lowell-desk.lan> In-Reply-To: <200910271956.56741.gnemmi@gmail.com> (Gonzalo Nemmi's message of "Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:56:56 -0200") References: <d873d5be0910270232m45f1f1eela9a99cd2b4572cde@mail.gmail.com> <200910271844.18697.gnemmi@gmail.com> <44fx94zg4x.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> <200910271956.56741.gnemmi@gmail.com>
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Gonzalo Nemmi <gnemmi@gmail.com> writes: > On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:22:22 pm Lowell Gilbert wrote: >> I probably should move this bikeshed to freebsd-chat... And now I actually am... >> Gonzalo Nemmi <gnemmi@gmail.com> writes: >> > On Tuesday 27 October 2009 6:20:35 pm Frank Shute wrote: >> >> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 09:24:58PM +0200, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: >> >> I can imagine that a lot of people do use sendmail - it's >> >> documented in the handbook for starters. If it was taken out and >> >> replaced with another MTA then there would be complaints that >> >> sendmail has been taken out or "replacement MTA" is the "wrong >> >> one". >> > >> > Well .. someday UFS will be replaced by ZFS .. >> >> Maybe. That's still quite a way out, and who knows what else will >> come along in the meantime? > > HammerFS? > A heavily armed Oracle lawyers squad team with 9mm. and willing to use > them without a second thught?? > Just a joke =P Seriously, though, something new could come up. Probably with Apple or Google support. >> > .. and one day Perl >> > just dissapeard from base .. yet the worl kept turning, and even >> > better .. no one got hurt ;) >> >> I remember quite a bit of pain. It was worth it, because maintaining >> perl in the base was causing pain on an ongoing basis, but it was a >> problem for users in a number of different ways. > > See what I mean? > It actually paid off for most people .. but do you remember all the > complaining that went on back then? > What makes it any different now? > > And what would you say ... removing perl was more daunting that > replacing Senmail? Honest question. Perl was harder. No question. But it also had clear benefits, and people willing to put in the work to make it happen. I would be just fine with replacing sendmail in the base system with postfix, but there's nobody lining up to do the work the way there was five years ago for removing perl. I would actually be just as happy to see *no* MTA in the base system, but the installer work to keep that from violating the Principle Of Least Astonishment is even more tricky than replacing sendmail with something else. >> > in the other hand, those not complaining, will probably be really >> > happy .. so ... >> >> So you keep saying, but I don't think there's any solid evidence. >> Your experience is one thing, but although I consider myself a >> postfix user, I have machines that run sendmail because it just >> worked for their purpose with no configuration at all. > > Didn't the same thing happen when perl was removed? > Some complaining, some cheering ... Everyone knew why it was necessary. Well, probably not "everyone," but those of us who'd been upgrading machines through several FreeBSD versions knew that perl was breaking regularly. That simply isn't the case with sendmail. For a server, it's a lot harder to configure than (anything else), but that's *completely* different from the active breakage that perl went through with every minor release of perl. >> > Doesn't ZFS mean that you have to reconfigure (or even reinstall) >> > your system? >> >> No. Your old configuration works just fine if you still want to keep >> using it. You won't get the advantages of ZFS, but having it in >> FreeBSD didn't bre > > Oh, sorry Lowell, I mean you had to reconfigure (or even reinstall) if > you want to make use of it :) > Sorry, I should've been more clear about that. Sure. But this isn't the case. You're talking about removing something that people are already using, not adding something that people will have to make major changes to start using in the future. So it does not in any way help your argument. -- Lowell Gilbert, embedded/networking software engineer, Boston area http://be-well.ilk.org/~lowell/
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