No subject


Tue Jun 4 12:25:35 MDT 2013


you logically twist what I said to mean that because something is
"tainted," you would(n't) be giving advice about it.

> Your point would be valid, if I ever said anything of the sort, or if we
> had a history of supporting things that our opinion of is "it really
> blows".  You'll be HARD PRESSED to find supporting evidence to the
> contrary.

Of course. I was illustrating my point by comparing that statement (which
you never said) to an undesirable trait (i.e. being an MCSE).

Thank you for clarifying my point for us all.

> >Seriously though, I think it's interesting to note that you distribute
> >Qmail as an SRPM instead of an RPM because DJB has an ego problem.
>
> You'll find that we distribute nearly *ALL* our software packages as SRPMs,
> not just qmail.  The only one for which that's not true is the Python RPMs,
> and that's because I'm the official maintainer and the python.org site
> really needs to have binary RPMs available on it.

Irrelevant. My point was you (or anyone else) are forced to do so by DJB.

> But, it's true that DJB restricts binary distribution of qmail...  If you
> *MODIFY* the source and build a binary, you can't distribute it.  Seems
> fair enough to me -- particularly considering he's put up his own cash as
> a bounty if anyone can find security holes in qmail...  I can fully
> understand his desire to limit the distribution of *MODIFIED* copies of
> his software.  Particularly when one of the goals of qmail is that it be
> *SECURE*.

Those are all crappy excuses from an insecure programmer who needs to make
such excuses.

He could easily put a clause in his bounty that it only counts if it was
"pure" DJB code (which I wouldn't fault him for), and he could also easily
require people to call products based upon Qmail something else, and allow
them to distribute them in binary form.

Which is 100% his right to do; but that's *not* an open source license, and
people shouldn't be conned into thinking it is.

And I have better things to do with my time than figure out if the way I'm
using "his" MTA is ok with him.

> I had less Linux experience than that when I first installed Qmail.  I
> found the "INSTALL" document to be incredibly easy to follow.  So,
> obviously, YMMV.

Yes, that is true... the INSTALL doc *is* easy to follow, but Qmail doesn't
follow really any conventions for Unix server software, and that's what
makes it confusing.

In fact, the vast majority of DJB's software doesn't follow the prevailing
convention, which is my main problem with it. But it's ok, because "DJB
knows better," right?

> You can hate DJB all you want -- that doesn't change the fact that it's a
> solid, reliable, secure piece of software...

Again, my reasons for NOT using Qmail are technical in nature; I don't like
software that restricts what I can do with it, and I don't like software
that doesn't play nice with other peices of software on the network.

Huh... that's funny... sound like Microsoft at all?

Later,
Paul
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    J. Paul Reed            preed at sigkill.com || web.sigkill.com/preed
    What's the point in being nuts if you can't have a little fun?
                                   -- John Nash, Jr., A Beautiful Mind




More information about the NCLUG mailing list