Author: P Kirk Date: To: Matthew Byng-Maddick CC: exim-users Subject: Re: [Exim] Web based admin
Hi Matthew,
Rather than wander through it point by point, why not consider the end
point of your argument?
Your logic is that only text file junkies can configure mail. Yet every
free software distro comes with a MTA and every small business needs
one. So unless people decide that editing text files is fun, they
should all buy Small Business Server with IIS, Exchange, etc. preloaded
and all accessible from a management console.
Taken to the end point, we end up with 2 mail admins using Exim.
Yourself because you are brighter than the average bunny. And Philip
because having wrote it he feels loyal to Exim.
The rest of us would be using Exchange on Windows or Mac OSX.
Why not consider the alternative view? Regardless of how clever you are
compared to GUI users, they do not pollute your world by using the same
software as you. In fact, the more they use it, the better tested and
respected the software is. And while they fool around with Webmin, you
will be free to use Ed to edit config files to your heart's content. (Vi
and Emacs are for wimps - when BJ created vi he started us all on the
slippery slope that ends up in the GUI mush, didn't he?)
There is room in this world for other points of view. Mail is just
another application. So is DNS. And if half the people in the world
mess up, well, so what? A couple of hours without web access while they
wait for a consultant to arrive won't kill them. We're not talking
essential brain surgery here. Even if they get their accounts suspended
for being open relays, its at most 24 hours offline. Again, few if any
will collapse into shivering heaps on the floor craving the latest /.
fix. Well, few if any outside the IT department anyway...you know what
I mean.
Lighten up. It only software. It exists to make life easy and treating
it as anything other than a useful tool is taking things a tad too
seriously, even if you are the only one who gets the point of it all.