Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 02:57:59 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" <dyson@FreeBSD.ORG> To: shimon@simon-shapiro.org Cc: dyson@FreeBSD.ORG, chat@FreeBSD.ORG, jack@germanium.xtalwind.net Subject: Re: Sendmail going commercial, and ? Message-ID: <199803180757.CAA20792@dyson.iquest.net> In-Reply-To: <XFMail.980317224845.shimon@simon-shapiro.org> from Simon Shapiro at "Mar 17, 98 10:48:45 pm"
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Simon Shapiro said: > > The way I understand the Sendmail announcement, is that new, future, > versions will be commercially encumbered. What is in our tree is not (I > cannot see how it could be). > I don't see that is necessarily true. There will likely be a non-commercial as-is sendmail like today. There will also be a commercial sendmail. > > Now, if we choose to just maintain this code base, we have no problem. > Sendmail has been around for some decades now and should be pretty stable. > It is safe to assume that new, replacement versions are not essential > anymore. If we choose to bring in a new, commercial version, then we will > violate many spoken and unspoken rules of this wonderful project. > We will not bring in the commercial version, by default, probably even if it is free for FreeBSD use. People regularly like to hack on *BSD software, and additional encumberances just don't fit our model. > > If we find ourselves in a situation where we have to replace sendmail with > unencumbered code, I volunteer to write it. I do not enjoy such work in > particular, but will do it for the good of the project. I promise to make > the code Berkeley license, before I write the first line. > :-). I think that if sendmail does become significantly encumbered, a new mailer project would be a very good thing. It is likely that such a project either being a single person type thing, or a large (Apache) type thing would be a good marketing vehicle for whomever is involved. > > So where do you see us stand: > > a. No problem at all, business as usual > b. We only sustain existing sendmail, and defer replacement until the code > athrophies enough (via missing new functionality, or just age) > c. We want to replace sendmail asap, but have a replacement in mind. > d. We need to start a new MTA project. > e. Something else which Simon did not think about. > I think that right now, it is best to think in 'a' mode above. 'd' mode is a good thing, but something that one would want to think very seriously about before embarking on. I think that 'b' mode would happen only if Sendmail does become significantly encumbered. 'c' mode is probably as problematical as a commercial sendmail. Sendmail is the de-facto very (perhaps too) general standard, compared with other mailers. I think that we should stick with it as the default until this thing settles out. Again, if someone had lots of energy, 'd' can't be a bad thing. I suspect that if the effort is started, that it might become commercial, due to the significant effort that the project would entail. It seems that MTA replacements are one of those things that suck people in by their deceptive simplicity. I could be wrong, because I haven't really looked into MTA's myself (except when having to mess with Sendmail config files, which I like much less than writing Lex and Yacc programs.) Again, the above are only my opinions, and I don't have any interest in dissuading a new MTA project. I do think that we are due for a new (less general, but easier to configure and simpler) one, but I also don't think that Sendmail will be going the way of the evil empire. If it does, the problem will be solved, and I suspect that if you are interested, you and others interested in it would participate in or spearhead such an effort. The results of that effort could be adopted by all of the Free OSes (kind-of like Apache.) (Again, the above opinions are mine, and not necessarily that of -core.) -- John | Never try to teach a pig to sing, dyson@freebsd.org | it just makes you look stupid, jdyson@nc.com | and it irritates the pig. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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