On 2011-05-19 at 09:58 +0000, Ian Eiloart wrote:
> But no, I don't see a sign of 5.0, or even discussion of what
> desirable radical changes would justify a major version number change.
> It might just be that we run out of minor version numbers!
>From the June 2010 maintainers meet-up summary notes (excuse long lines
please):
----------------------------8< cut here >8------------------------------
Release:
* No major new release, universal consensus
* No fixed schedule for releases
* Aim for at least one every six months, with "go with what we have" if we have been idle
* Don't break lexical comparison, not going 4.9901
* So will go from 4.99 to 5.00
* might jump ahead to 5.00 release after a new queuing system or another major new feature
* consensus that if we go for separate queue directories, backwards compat will be a Perl script for re-merging queues
* no on-disk format changes, just need re-merge
* consensus that full 8BITMIME support is needed and we should bite the bullet (and we're unhappy)
* regular spool file remains unmolested, auxilliary spool file with down-conversion created on demand and
unlinked as needed; if down-convert on-fly, omit SIZE
----------------------------8< cut here >8------------------------------
New queuing system refers to an approach to scale up the spool directory
to something more queue-like, with segregated admin-defined queues (eg,
"big_freemail_provider_x"). This is because while Exim is excellent at
inbound mail, it doesn't always scale as well as some would like for
outbound mail which can't be immediately delivered. Nothing has been
done on this. Patches welcome.
8BITMIME -- so much of the email system is 8-bit clean these days that
the whole down-conversion system of 8BITMIME is a travesty. But before
you can advertise 8BITMIME, you have to be able to either down-convert
or bounce, and bouncing leads to backscatter. So, we need to be able to
down-convert, in the expectation of never needing to do it. Exim's the
only major MTA to not advertise 8BITMIME by default. (And if you're
running an inbound-only 8-bit clean system, I encourage you to turn on
the "accept_8bitmime" option, which really just causes Exim to advertise
the EHLO keyword and to parse the extra MAIL adverbs).
Between security releases and "every 6 months", we have about 6 years to
get a major feature added for which we can justify a 5.00 bump before we
just hit it naturally, shrug, say "meh" and move on with no especially
substantive difference between 4.99 and 5.00. As long as it's not a
security fix, I'll be happy.
-Phil
