tp@ndmce.uucp (Terry Poot) (01/16/87)
Notice that all the people complaining about smail are really complaining
about sendmail? How to fix configuration files, how to get the From: line
screwed up in just the way sendmail likes it, how to get it to use the
correct transport mechanism, etc. I don't have sendmail (actually it is
lying around, but I keep hearing more reasons not to use it than to use
it). I've never used a mailer that could reply to a uucp address.
If I had one that properly handled standard syntax, it'd still mess up,
because some sendmail site somewhere scribbled on the From: line. The
reason I haven't installed sendmail is that I hear that the munging of
From: lines is unfixable without changing the program (NOT the
sendmail.cf).
I understand why people with LAN's use sendmail, but why does anyone else
use it? smail has made my life much easier. It would be easier still if
nobody ran sendmail (the headers wouldn't be destroyed). If sendmail can't
be made to follow the standards, why doesn't someone fix it, or write
something better. (My copy says it's owned by Berkeley, so I couldn't if I
wanted to. I've heard those copyrights are bogus, but I'm not willing to
go to court to find out.)
sendmail is not on all machines, and it never will be, as it is too big and
cumbersome to convince people to use it, and it is not in the public
domain, nor does the owner (whoever that is) distribute it freely. smail,
however, is small, portable, and freely distributed. It doesn't require
any specific version of Unix to run, and installs easily. Once installed,
the only maintenance required is to keep your path data correct, by
whatever means.
I'd be real interested in hearing why a uucp only site would want to run
sendmail.
--
Terry Poot, Nathan D. Maier Consulting Engineers, (214)739-4741
8800 N. Central Expressway, Suite 300, Dallas, Tx 75231, USA
UUCP: { seismo | cbosgd | ihnp4 | sun!convex | allegra!convex }!ndmce!tp
ARPA: ndmce!tp@seismo.css.gov CSNET: ndmce!tp@smu