At Sat Aug 2 22:16:43 2003, Raul Dias wrote: > > How about separating the rules from the SpamAssassin distribution > > itself, and offer them as a separate package? This would be similar to > > the way intrusion detection systems (Snort, etc.) and antivirus > > applications work. > > I think this is a great idea. > I thought about this some time ago, and wonder about some gotchas in > doing this: > 1 - Lots of rules depends on the sa "engine" being used to work, like > eval tests.
True. > 2 - Depending on the type of rules it would have to check the sa > "engine" version at run time to be sure it can be used. True. But for spamd, that's a one-time check at startup. > 3 - Some tests if not preperly written or used with a "buggy" version of > sa "engine", could bring sa down. Quite possibly. > 4 - For this to work out, an extra amount of qa tests would be necessary > to make sure nothing would break during rule package releases. Yes. > 5 - I am not sure the authors of sa (and volunteers) have enough time > for doing this. This process could slow sa development. Yes. There's another problem. If you introduce new rules, you have to give them scores. Because of the way the scoring is done, it's very time consuming and extremely processor intensive. In addition, the scoring is based on analyses of spam and ham mail submitted by volunteers, so it takes into account mail received by people other than the developers. It might be difficult to arrange this on a more frequent basis than is done currently, and hence the "quality" and quantity of the mail analysed to generate scores might well be lower. One of the developers has posted a set of reasons in the past, and I think the above is a fairly accurate summary. Of course, I can't find a copy of the original message :-( It would be Really Useful(TM) if the developers could put an "official" answer to this in the FAQ :-) This is a common one. > AFAI Imagine, anti-virus software companies have different teams to > deal with this issues. They also don't need to worry about a scoring system, and that's what really prevents splitting the engine from the rules. Martin -- Martin Radford | "Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ [EMAIL PROTECTED] | men just upload their important stuff -o) Registered Linux user #9257 | on ftp and let the rest of the world /\\ - see http://counter.li.org | mirror it ;)" - Linus Torvalds _\_V ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email sponsored by: Free pre-built ASP.NET sites including Data Reports, E-commerce, Portals, and Forums are available now. Download today and enter to win an XBOX or Visual Studio .NET. http://aspnet.click-url.com/go/psa00100003ave/direct;at.aspnet_072303_01/01 _______________________________________________ Spamassassin-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk
