On Tuesday 14 April 2009 10:48:17 am Stefan Monnier wrote: > > Why would somebody need an MTA for a (normal) desktop? > Why should every user specify an outgoing SMTP server? > Why should every MUA implement the functionality of an MTA?
I'm still procrastinating on my taxes, so I'll respond ;-) * I'm fairly certain that the functionality of an MTA is significantly more than just receiving mail via POP3 and sending it via SMTP. * I'm also fairly sure that the resources required by an MUA that can receive POP3 and send SMTP are usually less than the resources required for an MTA plus and MUA with similar functionality. (Part of what I'm trying to imply is that I know a mail client like kmail is much "bigger" than a mail client like mutt, but mutt is not a GUI mail client, kmail, and I suspect that's a bigger factor with respect to the resource requirements than the ability to handle SMTP and POP3 for a single client.) * It's also sort an an historical accident--afaik, Windows (and Dos) email clients (almost??) always could handle POP3 and SMTP without a local MTA. When people (like me) migrated from Windows to Linux, I couldn't understand why I needed an MTA (and I didn't, but it was sure a learning curve until I found that out for sure). Then, the first MTA "people" thought I should deal with was sendmail, and that was a big pain to learn how to get that to simply interface to my ISP. (In fact, I never did, I switched to Postfix and learned (again with difficulty, but presumably less) how to get it to interface to my ISP. Maybe those problems are gone now, and maybe it was never a problem of the program's capability, but of me learning the program's capability. I've sat in LUG meetings where guys have bragged about reading all the RFCs, and telling the newbies that they had to do the same. (Implying many things.) Anyway, it appears you've struck (or I've uncovered) a nerve, so if you really feel that (hmm, how to fairly paraphrase what I infer from your comment)... MUAs should not include SMTP and POP3 (and maybe IMAP) capabilities, but everyone should install and use an MTA, I think I'll just agree to disagree. regards, Randy Kramer Hmm, did I just feed a troll? -- I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I created a video instead.--with apologies to Cicero, et.al. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
