DAve wrote:
<soapbox>
Patch smatch, if it's a patch everyone gets to beat qmail up and
scream at each other about what a wasted never updated POS qmail is.
So patches are bad bad bad. Only software that is poor and decrepit
uses patches. But, let someone add that patch to the source code and
bundle up a new package and suddenly every new user who posts a
question is told "You need the latest version". I have seen this many
many times on many many maillists.
We have not had to make a security update to our qmail installs in the
5 years we have been running them. All it took was running "patch <
somediff" a few times ONCE during the initial install.
Lets be honest here, most minor version upgrades in OSS are the result
of contributed patches (developer or user). Yet no one is claiming
that vpopmail/postfix/perl/ruby/python is a patchy POS after we see
the developers accepting patches from users and rolling out an upgrade.
I think it would be nice to feel like to owner/author of qmail was
actually behind it. And to do that, he should be improving upon it -
that is, accepting at least the patches that we all use. Obviously it's
not a complete product, unless you can point me to a substantial 'stock
qmail' userbase.
Nobody can even provide binaries for the 'lessers' among us - so they
will never use it.
I propose that someone create a shell script that installs qmail and a
set of user selected "Modules" chosen from a menu. Vpopmail could be a
"Module", chkuser could be a "Module", bigip could be a "Module".
You could even rerun the script to add/subtract "Modules", much like
Apache Toolbox. Maybe then people would get over their aversion to
"patches" in qmail.
</soapbox>
Check out Matt Simerson's Mail::Toaster - I think the back end is even
in CPAN now..
www.tnpi.biz.
I've totally felt like a 'Matt schill' lately, but IMHO what he has done
just rocks.
Rick
Thank you, I feel better, you may return to your regularly scheduled
list mail.
DAve
