Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 09:36:19 +0100 (MET) From: Helge Oldach <helge.oldach@atosorigin.com> To: yeasah@apocalypse.org (Yeasah Pell) Cc: stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: HEADS UP: sendmail 8.12.2 MFC'ed Message-ID: <200203270836.JAA29261@galaxy.de.cp.philips.com> In-Reply-To: <026501c1d561$90d61de0$0200a8c0@gauss> from Yeasah Pell at "Mar 27, 2002 2:31:42 am"
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Yeasah Pell: >The question is >simply this: why are there large, complex, non-BSD packages in src-contrib >that are not critical to the running of many types of systems, and not >strictly a dependency of the system proper? Because they always have been. BSD users (those who have been running BSD systems for *years* and not those who jumped on the wagon lately) do expect that a decent, full-function MTA and DNS server are on board by default. And further they expect that those beasts are being configured as they have always been configured, in other words: No learning curve, no additional installation of the ports. This BSD thing is about tradition. "Alternative" software is what the word says: It's about re-inventing the wheel. This is the Linux spirit. >The suggestion that moving sendmail or bind into the ports tree is >tantamount to doing the same to vi is interesting, but I see a major >difference between the two: I can hardly contrive an example where vi >wouldn't be useful to have, whereas I have actually encountered many cases >in my work where a DNS server and an MTA are both unwanted and even needed >to be removed due to constraints unrelated to name resolution or mail >transport. I have the exactly opposite experience. Most of my systems need at least an outbound-only MTA, and it's much easier to add a single rc.conf line than to build a port, set aside installing the entire ports tree first. (Yes, I have a couple of machines without ports tree. Consider, for instance firewalls or VPN gateways.) Moving it into ports will complicate matters for almost everybody, while having some decent full-function package in the base system will make it easy at least for those who use that. Count this my strong vote against removal of packages that are traditionally part of the base system. Helge To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200203270836.JAA29261>