On Fri, 31 Oct 1997, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> On Fri, October 31, 1997 at 12:14:04 (-0800), Jim Gottlieb wrote:
> > After nine years of working with smail3, I must reluctantly bid it
> > adieu. There are just too many bugs in it these days, and it is
> > lacking some modern features.
> I know what you mean. I've been whacking them as fast and hard as I can
> and without the support of the community doing the same it wouldn't be
> anywhere near as good as it is. Unfortunately the ToDo list keeps growing.
> I think Exim and Smail serve slightly different user bases though, which
> is why I still work with Smail and want to add at least the minimum new
> security fixes and fix the most glaring bugs and other omissions.
Call me dense, but this begs a question I've pondered since I discovered
exim, and I'm asking it on both the smail3 and exim mailing lists:
Given the limited resources naturally available on freeware projects, the
massive effort needed to maintain a state-of-the-art MTA, and the immense
similarity between exim and smail, does it really make sense to have two
such closely parallel projects re-inventing each others' wheels?
I don't understand Greg's point of "slightly different user bases". Are
they different in their needs, or merely their makeup? What are their
separate requirements, such that a pooling of talent between smail and
exim could not give them what they need?
Each of exim and smail3 have strengths the other lacks, they're so similar
yet oh-so-significantly incompatible.
I don't know the history, but is there any cosmic force that would enable
Philip and Greg, and their respective supporters, to work together on a
single MTA? Are there philosophical differences what I cannot grasp by
merely using exim and smail3?
I note that many people are looking for sendmail alternatives, yet it's
extremely difficult convincing a Unix vendor (or freeware distributor) to
accept either exim or smail3, even as an option. Would the combined
resources of the exim and smail3 communities not produce an MTA (and a
significantly large combined user base) that could finally be acceptable
to the OS builders?
Maybe I've come in too late to know the politics that cause the initial
splintering -- but being on both exim and smail3 mailing lists, and
watching all the duplicated effort, it does seem rather sad that there
is no common ground upon which we can all build.
- Evan
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