On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 13:58:08 +0200, Jeremiah Foster
<jeremiah.foster@???> wrote:
>On Sep 20, 2005, at 5:37 PM, Marc Haber wrote:
>> On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:53:29 -0400, Marc Sherman
>> <msherman@???> wrote:
>>> 2) The Debian package maintainers have customized and modified the
>>> Exim
>>> config mechanisms quite aggressively, in an effort to handhold those
>>> same clueless newbies.
>
>So heartwarming to read in black-and-white the deep respect developers
>have for users.
As far as I know, Marc Sherman is neither affiliated with exim nor
with Debian development.
>>> This has the effect of steepening the learning curve quite drastically
>>> for people who are just beginning to leave clueless newbie territory.
>>
>> All people need is to read the docs. They don't.
>
>This is partly true. The debian documentation is not centrally located,
>obtuse, and has tangential relevance to the documentation on the main
>exim web site.
The central location for documentation on Debian (and on every
FHS-compliant Unix System) is /usr/share/doc, and thus
/usr/share/doc/exim4-base/README.Debian should be impossible to miss.
The README file references a lot of other documentation which is
either in the doc directory, or in a manpage, or in the configuration
itself.
>A smaller spec file is a more realistic option
Exim's specification is, like, a specification. It exactly describes
how exim behaves and is an excellent piece of work - as exim itself
is.
What Exim is indeed lacking is freely available user-level
documentation in tutorial style, with Philip's Book probably being
closest approximation.
>as is
>greater participation by the community to maintain wikis etc. I have
>followed Marc's suggestion to create a document informing people of
>where documentation lives. My preliminary document is here -
>http://devmodul.com/documentation/exim/exim4_debian_documentation.shtml
>Please note this is a work in progress.
Basically looks like a standards-compliant 404.
>Clue is an unfortunate term. It is condescending and perjorative. The
>issue really is how easy is it to install and run and how clear is the
>documentation. To state that all failures running exim4 are due to the
>"clueless newbies" is specious and indicative of the willful disregard
>free software porgrammers in general have for users.
It is like the willful disregards that most users have for prominently
visible documentation.
>No wonder tools
>like Ubuntu are so popular, the world wants to use secure, good
>software but installing debian is nearly impossible for many people.
>This is not a fault of the users, this is a fault of the developers.
Which MTA does Ubuntu use by default, and from where was the packaging
pulled?
>>> 3) Debian's incredibly long stable release cycles mean that there are
>>> very significant periods of time where Debian will be shipping as
>>> "stable" a very outdated (and possibly buggy) version of Exim. This
>>> is
>>> exacerbated by the fact that the actual "make release here" point is
>>> chosen by Debian's release managers without much real warning (or
>>> rather, too much real warning, leading to a wolf-crying situation),
>>> and
>>> as a result, Debian will often ship as stable a relatively immature
>>> x.x0
>>> or x.x1 release.
>>
>How can debian ship both an "outdated" and "immature" release under
>stable? This seems a contradiction.
Unfortunately, it isn't. It is perfectly possible to continue shipping
an immature release for a long time. Thankfully, _that_ hasn't
happened to Debian's exim, most probably because immature releases do
not happen very often with Exim. Thanks again, guys.
Greetings
Marc
--
-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! -----
Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header
Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom " | http://www.zugschlus.de/
Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 621 72739834
