No offense to DJB at all, but you have a very strange view of open sourced
software if you don't believe in using patches. I presume you don't use
rolled distributions of Linux (if you run Linux at all) either, seeing as
they're usually packed with patches.
Patches are basically the equivalent of plug-ins, which you probably don't use
either (for your browser, if you use anything but Lynx).
That said, if DJB says 'this patch breaks the security in Qmail' I'd be
tempted not to use it, if he has no comment, that's another thing entirely.
If he just doesn't like the proliferation of patches for Qmail, I don't really
care.
Example: I use vpopmail to replace the usual pop authentication, for
instance. Do I think it should be part of the Qmail distribution? No, I
think it works better on its own.
Russ Allbery wrote:
> Michael T Babcock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > Considering the number of useful patches that aren't part of the qmail
> > distribution that the average qmail admin seems to be using, I disagree.
>
> I disagree with the contention that the *average* qmail admin is using any
> patches at all, if by average you mean the mode, and possibly even the
> median.
>
> I'm running qmail on a half-dozen different machines and I've never used a
> third-party patch to qmail for anything. I've never needed to.
>
> If your qmail installation is dependent on patches not written by Dan, I
> will echo my same recommendation: Seriously consider using another MTA.
> My opinion as a system administrator is that attempting to use and support
> packages plus third-party patches not blessed by the package maintainer is
> a recipe for disaster. With all due respect to the qmail-ldap people, for
> example, I'd be much more confident in Postfix's LDAP support because it's
> part of the main distribution.
