tlug: Why there won't be no SATS [was: KDE & Japanese]

[Matt Gushee <matt@example.com>]

Stephen J. Turnbull writes:
 > >>>>> "Matt" == Matt Gushee <matt@example.com> writes:
 > 
 >     Matt> ... personally I think a simple alternative to Sendmail
 >     Matt> would be even more appreciated ... but mail daemons aren't
 >     Matt> 'kewl' enough for today's young programmers, I guess.
 > 
 > Does `kewl' have anything to do with it?  Mail is just hard, a program 
 > to deal with it is hard.  There are lots of (would be) simple
 > alternatives to sendmail:  qmail, smail, zmail, upas, and exim just off 
 > the top of my head.

There I go again, shooting from the hip. Guess I should have been a
little clearer.

If you take "alternative to Sendmail" to mean a program that does
everything Sendmail does, I'm sure you're right. If I can clarify a
little what I meant:

First of all, I'm talking about Linux as a desktop (or 'client,' if
you prefer) OS. I see a number of cases with Linux where there the
only good[1] programs available to perform a given task are complex,
industrial-strength applications that are designed primarily for
server usage and include functions that very few people are likely to
want for a client installation -- Sendmail being only the most extreme 
case.

For example, I use Linux on a LAN-connected desktop PC at the office
and on a notebook machine (usually at home). I have a POP3 account at
work. I don't think I try to process my mail in any particularly
sophisticated way (beyond the sophistication that I know you will
point out is inherent in the whole e-mail process). The only things I
really care about are:

1) having a nice interface that integrates well with other programs
2) removing the mail from the server when I read it at the office, and 
keeping it on the server when I read it at home.

... both very common requirements, I would think. First I tried Applix
Mail, which satisfied requirement (2), but failed miserably on
(1). Ditto for Netscape. Then there was VM, which was the one I really 
wanted to use all along ... but I couldn't configure XEmacs's movemail 
to keep the mail on the server[2]. Thus:

	fetchmail + sendmail + procmail

And the config file provided for dial-up networking didn't work, and
so I had to edit it ... and that's how I came to hate Sendmail.

I'm tempted to start ragging on PPP, too, but I'll leave that for another
day.

I don't know a whole lot about networking issues, so maybe I'm
misconceiving, but I see an enormous gap between the high-performance
Sendmail-type stuff and the too-limited, brain-dead Movemail-type
stuff. And I sense that many, many people would be happy to see that
gap filled.

By the way, about 'kewlness,' I think it's has everything to do with
it. This is turning into advocacy, so I won't go on at length. But
it's a simple matter of how programmers allocate their limited
time. If you're busy making a window manager that looks like some
parallel universe from Star Trek (I think you know which one I mean),
then you're not spending time on something else that might be more
useful to the broader community. I don't have a problem with people
hacking on whatever they like, but I get the impression that some free
software developers are young hotshots who think they're making
something useful as well as beautiful, but are too wrapped up in their
coding world to have a clear picture of what people really need. But
of course I don't know these people, so perhaps I'm totally mistaken.

That's enough ... probably too much ... for tonite.

Matt Gushee
Oshamanbe, Hokkaido

[1] 'good' in this context means a program that is reliable,
reasonably configurable, and respects the standard protocols in its
domain
[2] hey, Steve -- I don't think I've ever actually asked anybody about 
this (though I did read the docs, several times). I *think* XEmacs's
movemail doesn't have an option to keep the mail on the server. Am I
mistaken?
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