Re: [exim] Debian as a 'Special Case' for Exim

On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 05:21:24PM +0100, Hendrik Sattler said:
> Am Freitag, 18. Februar 2005 16:06 schrieb Walt Reed:
> > On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 03:22:10PM +0100, Hendrik Sattler said:
> > > Am Freitag, 18. Februar 2005 15:05 schrieb Walt Reed:
> > > > Debian Stable's default MTA is exim 3 which is
> > > > really the main problem, derived from the excruciatingly long release
> > > > cycle.
> > >
> > > Why exactly is this a problem? Exim3 works like it does when it was
> > > current. You can also still download it from the exim FTP servers. And if
> > > you simple do not NEED the new things in exim4, I do not see any
> > > motivation to upgrade. This is completely independent of running Debian
> > > or any other distribution.
> > >
> > > If you are complaining that some use older exim versions, get over it,
> > > you cannot change that. This really sounds like you being ashamed of an
> > > older version just because you have a new an fancy one.
> >
> > I think you are missing the main issue with Exim 3.
>
> And I think you are missing the main issue with exim4:
> - you will forever and always have older distribution with older software

Sure, but the bottom line is that it is unreasonable to expect continued
support for very old versions of software. You don't seem willing to
accept that, but we are talking FOSS here... Unless you have a paid
support contract, any expectation of support is unwarrented and
unreasonable. Many of the debian users that come in here do with the
attitude that they expect support - not realizing that they are using
software that was outdated 3 years ago.

> - there is no fully-automatic upgrade path from exim3 to exim4 (at least
> nothing that produces maintainable results). That's not really a problem as
> the major version changed but the problem is that everyone is expected to
> happily change to exim4 and configure that one anew.

Yes. Life is hard. Get used to it. I can't do a seemless upgrade from
Windows 95 to Server 2003 either. So go improve the converter if it's
that important. It's open source. It is also quite reasonable to expect
that anyone who has done any major customizations of Exim 3 would have
the skills to do those customizations on Exim 4. Continuing to ship old
dead software is (IMHO) a horrible policy decision.

> - you can still download exim3 from the exim.org mirrors and lots of other ftp
> server that have older distributions as archive

... And your point is??? You can still download Linux kernel 0.01 too.
Does that mean that you should never upgrade? That argument is not
valid.

> Debian Sarge WILL NOT ship exim3 as default anymore but still has an exim3
> (actually called 'exim') package. Why? Because someone might want to UPGRADE
> without having to cope with a suddenly non-working system. Absolutely noone
> prevents you from changing to exim4 AFTER the upgrade or stay with exim3 if
> you are happy. I do not see any problem with this policy but i DO see
> problems with taking exim3 out of Debian Sarge when it was the default MTA in
> Debian Woody. There are people and distribution that do not care about this,
> Debian does.

So we can still expect droves of Debian users

> So see Debian Sarge as having the same state as exim.org's ftp servers.
>
> > It's no longer supported upstream. Outside of Debian, very few sites use
> > it anymore.
>
> And how many had a nice and easy upgrade? I guess, those sites "simply"
> reworked their configuration.

Some probably had easy upgrades (Mine was not hard at all, and the
convert script did a nice job of getting something working quickly.)
Others who had heavy modifications probably had more trouble - but those
people have the skills to fix it in exim 4, so it's a non issue.

Life is hard. Get used to it.

> > The problem is all the debian users that come in looking
> > for help and most of the people on exim-users can't help them since they
> > have all moved to exim4 years ago.
>
> Aaaah, now you see the real problem: it's not exim3 in Debian but missing
> support for old versions in exim-users. That's something different but
> Debian's not to blame for that.

It's debian USERS that are harmed due to the Debian policies. They
can't get support because debian ships software that is old and dead.
Phillip is doing a Great job of providing one of the best MTA's on the
planet, with awesome documentation, etc. He (and the community) can't be
expected to continue to support old code forever. This is FOSS. It's
free to upgrade. You are expected to do so. Life is hard, get used to
it. By shipping an old dead version of Exim, Debian is harming it's own
userbase and giving exim a bad name and THAT is 100% Debian's fault.
Sorry.

People are still installing Woody new today, and therefor still doing
brand-new installs of exim3. That is DEFINATLY Debians fault. There is
nothing stopping Debian from doing "refreshes" and changing the default
MTA to exim4 in woody - the backport has existed for a very long time.

> > All the current FAQ's docs, wiki's,
> > howto's are ALL exim 4. The last exim 3 release was almost 3 years ago.
> > Over and over and over, the answers are always "Exim 3 is dead. Upgrade
> > to exim 4."
>
> Yes, that's valid and e.g. cdrtools maintainer does it the same. However,the
> mailing list admin could make that clear in the welcome mail or in the text
> on its webpage. Nothing about exim3 or older being not welcome here is
> mentioned there.
> But even if you do, you face the same problem that the Debian exim4 packages
> have: people do not like to read documentation, obviously (including those
> that complain about the exim4-config debian package).

If people are not going to read the docuementation or do any basic
research before blasting in with lots of very basic questions, they
don't deserve community support.

Note: I am and have been a debian user for a long time, but that does
not stop me from disagreeing with certain debian policies and decisions.