On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Piete Brooks wrote:
> > I have a bit of a feature request for exim. Right now I help run the
> > listservers on debian.org and we use QMail. We would like to switch to a
> > free software product
>
> Is qmail not a "free software product" ? What is a "free software product" ?
See the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG).
http://www.debian.org/social_contract.html QMail fails clauses 3 and 4,
that is it cannot be redistributed in binary form and you cannot
distribute derivitive works.
> > So, I am wondering what it would take to get a qmail_file director in exim?
>
> I do not know .qmail well -- is there no chance of a .forward file generator,
> or is it the effciciency that concerns you ?
We would like to keep the same format and same feature set. QMail files
are fairly feature rich in a simple way [ie they are not filter's]
To convert most qmail files to .forward files is possible, but you loose
out on the unique aspects of qmail files - I would rather
> > Also we do not want to be tied to exim's prorprietary filter mechanism
>
> Err -- I am lost ...
>
> The de facto format (sendmail .forward file) is not sufficiently powerful,
> so you have to move to a "prorprietary" format.
> You want to use the qmail prorprietary format, rejecting the exim one as it is
> prorprietary ??
I think proprietary is a poor word to have used.
But, I would like to see qmail support in exim because,
1) The exim format provides filtering, we are not interesting in
filtering.
2) The qmail file is easy to parse correctly in all cases, no
'guessing' as with .forward files
3) The qmail file supports the extension mechanism as a standard feature,
ie jgg-blah@??? can be handled by it's own .qmail file
4) The qmail file sets a specific set of environs to make writing
decision filter scripts in shell simple + fast.
Exim's filter mechanism I would see as being totaly orthogonal to this and
more complex. That is, the exim filter mechism I see as being more a
replacement for procmail - the qmail stuff adds features to the mailer
that are not otherwise possible (#3 pretty much)
Further more it is substantially more likely for other mailers to
implement support for .qmail (and do it correctly) than it is for exim's
filter mechanism to be supported.
I know exim can be made to support an extension mechanism similar to
qmail files with it's .forwards, but again that is non-standard and
doesn't exist in any other mailer. I even recall it supports the qmail
MailDir format now.
> > not to mention that post filtering one mailbox is not as effective as sender
> > filtering via multiple addresses.
>
> What are the two means you are comparing ?
> What level of "effciciency" are you talking about here ?
> How many CPU cycles are involved, and how many do you get per second ?
I am not talking about efficiancy, but said 'effectiveness' that is
filtering on the content of the message is much less effective than
filtering based on destination email adderss.
Please don't turn this into a flame war over which is better, they are
both good and can both co-exist happily, is there any reason exim cannot
support both?
Jason
Who would code it but has way to much other code to write.
--
*** Exim information can be found at
http://www.exim.org/ ***
