-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Shupp [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: November 21, 2001 9:17 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: clearopensmtp
On Wednesday, November 21, 2001, at 09:27 PM, Dan Serban wrote:
> I find finding good docs on these packages hard to find, I think that
> I'll
> leave this production server alone and play with the innards a bit so I
> understand them better and maybe take it upon myself to write better
> documentation... no offense to Ken, the fact that I went completely
> bannanas with one (ok 2) packages seems to generally be impossible to
> me.
> So there I've said my piece... I feel better.
I have to say that I find statements like these utterly frustrating. If
you want to complain that software is lacking documentation, or that it
makes you go bananas, please make sure that it's software that you have
PAID someone to complain about, and complain to them. MANY of us have
spent a lot of time helping to further the work that Inter7 and (and
others before them) have done. Sometimes to satisfy our own needs,
sometimes simply because it's interesting and we want to spend time on
it.
---
I certainly apologise for coming accross the way I did. I was in fact
_trying_ to say that if it wasn't for this mailing list, I would've given
up. People like you are hard to find, taking time out to help out with
something you believe in. I've been a part of different projects before and
I fully support the OpenSource movement. By the people for the people, I
took it for granted that, that was what this mailing list was about.
I generally scour docs, and sites, and mailing list archives and I come up
with the answers because they're generally provided to me in that manner.
The frustration I was experiencing was inconsistency with the documentation
and the fact that the admin docs mainly pointed out the configure options
for compilation of the package. Blowing steam was my way of celebrating
sleepless nights, looking for docs, scouring mailing lists, making notes and
crashing and burning at every turn. I would like to help Inter7 and any GPL
projects that come from there, because the features and the advantages
provided by the products from Inter7 are unmatched.
---
If you can't make it work, even after asking for assistance on these
lists, you'll have to figure it out for yourself or pay for commercial
support (which is available). Otherwise, you'll probably be happier
with a commercial product, not GPL software (which comes with NO
WARRANTY). Statements like these damage your credibility, and lessen
the chance of getting assistance on later posts.
---
I hmbly disagree with your above statement, if it wasn't for the support
provided to me by the Linux community to me in the past, I wouldn't advocate
it because I wouldn't understand it and I'd still be happily kludging along
in the Microsoft world, completely oblivious to any other options, or under
the impression that the other "Open Source" options are a waste of time. If
everyone had to spend hours upon countless hours learning code (if they
weren't a programmer) and playing with settings to get a package to do what
it said it did; the community concept would hardly exist. Everyone would be
on their own, fumbling around in the dark. I would be more than happy to
pay someone else to do it, but I wouldn't have learned anything along the
way. That's not me. There's a reason I switched to qmail/vpopmail/courier,
after researching my options, these packages seemed to have a large user
base and a solid backing from other sysadmins out there and I liked it.
(and yes I am familiar with GPL, I write programs under the GPL)
I personally thank you for the time you took to help with my particular
problem(s).
One of your previous messages regarding the use of shell variables, throwing
in the -user -group flags for couriertcpd etc... is what made me realize
that both packages needed better documentation. In fact you suggested to
Ken that the question is being asked enough, that it should appear on the
inter7.com website. I was merely suggesting that I would try to delve
deeper into the code/user problems and attempt to make the documentation for
these packages more complete.
Again, I apologise for coming accross the way I did.
Dan
