On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Piete Brooks wrote:
> > But, I would like to see qmail support in exim because,
> > 1) The exim format provides filtering, we are not interesting in
> > filtering.
>
> It provided "selective processing".
> Why are you not interested in this ? I'm missing something.
Okay, I have zero interest in filtering based on anything other than To
Address, everything else can be handled universally by procmail.
[Why exactly would I want to use exim's filters when I have procmail?]
[2 is not really relavent to this discussion]
> > 3) The qmail file supports the extension mechanism as a standard feature,
> > ie jgg-blah@??? can be handled by it's own .qmail file
>
> ... whereas exim uses an "if" to put them all in one file.
> This may not suit your requirements as well -- I accept that.
So along with generalized filtering exim's forward files provide way to
separate out extension adresses. That is nice. But it doesn't help me
replace qmail :>
> > Exim's filter mechanism I would see as being totaly orthogonal to this and
>
> No -- it is its implementation of this.
>
> > more complex.
>
> Agreed -- AKA "more powerful" ..
> [ That's why I like it :-) ]
<shrug> The qmail file+procmail combination can do most everything exim's
filters do and is simpler to implement in the MTA.
> > 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.
>
> Quite possibly.
>
> But are there others yet ?
There is qmail and exim could likely do it quite easially. That is 2. Like
it or not qmail is becomming widely used and supporting qmail files would
make exim much more attractive to such sites. If there was some other
mailer that supported qmail files and was DFSG free I would not be even
thinking about Exim.
To make something usefull someone has to take the first step.
> > is much less effective than filtering based on destination email adderss.
>
> Err -- is this the crux of the matter ?
>
> Exim can filter on the destination email adderss ....
>
> Am I missing something ??
Apparently not, exim can do most things qmail can with it's filter files
but it is not compatible with anything. I do not understand this desire to
create difference when you could easially support something that is
actually fairly decent and help improve things. DJB I am sure will never
support exim's filter methods (I bet he would say filtering does not
belong in the MTA) sendmail is static, smail is dead, who knows about
zmailer. [excuse the generallizations]
> > Please don't turn this into a flame war over which is better,
>
> I'm not intending so to do.
> I'm trying to discvover if there are deficiencies in what exim does.
>
> > they are both good and can both co-exist happily,
>
> I'd say that they each have their uses.
> E.g. if you want a different message per recipient (making tracing of mail list
> problems real easy) qmail is great, whereas if you want to send a single
> message to multiple recipients as a single SMTP message, use exim.
I ment .qmail file and .forward files, not exim/qmail. I do not care about
any feature comparisions between exim and qmail for this task (I might
post an email on that later though, have a list server.. ). I want to get
rid of qmail because it conflicts with Debian's stated goals and it is
poor form for us to be using it.
No more, no less.
To do this I want to make things as painless as possible, and that would
mean having exim support qmail files. I do not care about which is better,
which is worse, I simply want a working solution.
> > is there any reason exim cannot support both?
> Do we really want exim to become the union of all mailers ?
<shrug> What other features are you going to add? A potential user asked
for one, I hope you will give it due consideration. The instant a free
mailer comes around that supports .qmail files I will wipe qmail off the
Debian servers.
Thanks,
Jason
--
*** Exim information can be found at
http://www.exim.org/ ***
