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Date:      Sat, 15 Apr 2000 17:05:55 -0500 (CDT)
From:      Joe Greco <jgreco@ns.sol.net>
To:        chuckr@picnic.mat.net (Chuck Robey)
Cc:        current@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Integrating QMAIL in the world
Message-ID:  <200004152205.RAA24385@aurora.sol.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0004122104560.59241-100000@picnic.mat.net> from Chuck Robey at "Apr 12, 2000  9: 8:38 pm"

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> On Sat, 15 Apr 2000, Joe Greco wrote:
> 
> > Uh, Chuck, can you tell me how many BIND and Sendmail advisories there have
> > been in the last five years?
> > 
> > Wouldn't it be nice if we could just tell newbies, "hey, yeah, that Sendmail
> > has a known security issue, pkg_delete it and then add this new one here". 
> > Or would you prefer to explain to someone who doesn't "have the least clue 
> > how to do it" how to upgrade BIND and Sendmail to the latest?
> > 
> > The concept is beneficial from _many_ angles, not just the one I gave. 
> > 
> > Despite my tendency to promote the traditional BSD distribution style, that
> > does not mean that I feel that everything in FreeBSD should arrive as it did
> > on the 4.4BSD tape.  I think that the ability to be able to select modules
> > for inclusion or exclusion would be particularly useful.
> 
> If you want to pick another one and by default install that, fine.  If you
> want to force new users to read all about mailers just to get their first
> mail working, no, that's just too much, Joe, you're asking too much of
> folks.  If you've got a bone to pick with sendmail, that's ok, but you
> have to pick a better one.  If you can't decide on the best one, then how
> in the heck do you expect Joe Public to do better?
> 
> ALWAYS provide sensible default values, not a bunch of expert questions.

Chuck,

Please go back and read what I _wrote_.  Your response assumes I made
statements that I certainly did not, and suggests to me that you missed
every third word in my previous messages.  :-(  In particular, I advocated
including Sendmail in the base system in a manner that would allow it to
be trivially removed (or, alternatively, not including it but making it
a selectable package, like X11).

This could, for example, be done in the very same way that we currently
do loads of other crap, like /usr/games, proflibs, etc.  More ideally, it
would be done in a format compatible with the package management system,
so that one could simply "pkg_delete" Sendmail and install a new one.

Am I getting through now?  :-)
-- 
... Joe

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Greco - Systems Administrator			      jgreco@ns.sol.net
Solaria Public Access UNIX - Milwaukee, WI			   414/342-4847


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