On Thu, 5 Sep 1996, Robert Black wrote:
> If Philip were to change the default configuration for Linux to fit in with the
> fsstnd then surely he should also change the configurations for other operating
> systems to fit in with their default ways of working. I can see several
> problems with this.
So can I! Not the least of them is that I'm not very familiar with all
the different flavours of Unix, being a relative newcomer to the OS.
> Speaking from personal experience, the task of managing ports of
> a single package to half a dozen operating systems is no joke.
Hear! Hear! Even when they are all "Unix". :-)
> An important consideration when deciding what to do here is Philip's intended
> target group of users. If he is targetting large sites then the appropriate
> defaults are potentially quite different from what they are if he is trying to
> make exim trivial to install for people with no previous experience of
> computers (I'm sure that he would love to do both, given an infinite amount of
> time and money). This is not a problem because the GNU GPL allows for third
> parties who want to prepare alternative distributions for different target
> audiences.
Indeed. My position is that I wrote Exim for use in our (large)
environment here. However, I didn't want to tie it down *just* for our
own benefit, so I tried to make it as flexible as I could, and to
include facilities that would be useful to sites other than our own.
This seems to have been achieved. I'll be able to continue to work on it
for some time, but I haven't got the time to investigate the niceties of
every Unix version, especially the small, personal ones like Linux.
The sysadmin of a large system who installs Exim just has to spend a few
minutes at the start setting up Local/Makefile, and then just copy it
for new releases, which doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
For systems like Linux, I think it best to leave the packaging to those
who know much more about it than I do, and this does indeed seem to be
starting to happen.
--
Philip Hazel University Computing Service,
ph10@??? New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3QG,
P.Hazel@??? England. Phone: +44 1223 334714
