Subject: Bug#4064: sendmail should recommend deliver, not depend

From: Michael Shields <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 01:38:07 +0000 (GMT)

Package: sendmail
Version: 8.7.5-4

sendmail depends on deliver.  However, in at least two common
configurations -- null client, and delivery by procmail -- it will run
perfectly without deliver.  sendmail should only recommend it.
-- 
Shields, CrossLink.

---

From: Miquel van Smoorenburg <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 11:57:17 +0200 (MET DST)

> perfectly without deliver.  sendmail should only recommend it.

And as a result you can install sendmail without deliver and your
mail installation won't work at all..

Sendmail should come with mail.local instead of deliver IMHO.

Mike.
-- 
  Miquel van    | Cistron Internet Services   --    Alphen aan den Rijn.
  Smoorenburg,  | mailto:[email-masked]          http://www.cistron.nl/
[email-masked] | Tel: +31-172-419445 (Voice) 430979 (Fax) 442580 (Data)

---

From: Michael Shields <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 15:53:00 +0000

>mail installation won't work at all..

I guess sendmailconfig would have to check for this, since whether you need
deliver or not depends on your answers to the prompts.

>Sendmail should come with mail.local instead of deliver IMHO.

That would work too.

--
Shields, CrossLink.

---

From: Lukas Nellen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 1996 18:15:52 -0500

> You (Michael Shields) wrote:
...
> mail installation won't work at all..

One could introduce another virtual package (e.g., local-mail), have sendmail 
depend on this. Both procmail and deliver could provide this package. Sounds 
like a bit of an overkill for this problem, though.

> Sendmail should come with mail.local instead of deliver IMHO.

I think that is the simpler and better solution.

			Cheers,
				Lukas
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Dr. Lukas Nellen                 | Email: [email-masked]
   Depto. de Fisica Teorica, IFUNAM |
   Apdo. Postal 20-364              | Tel.:  +52 5 622 5014 ext. 218
   01000 Mexico D.F., MEXICO        | Fax:   +52 5 622 5015

---

From: Richard Kaszeta <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 22:13:26 -0500

>like a bit of an overkill for this problem, though.

Umm, no.  There are many ways of configuring sendmail, and a number of
these (including one of the supplied configurations) do not require
local mail delivery. Indeed, I've got quite a few debian 1.1 machines
here happily running sendmail without local mail delivery (since I use
a mailhost).

'Recommends' my be appropriate here.  Depends?  Nope.  I can very
easily configure and run sendmail in a sane manner without ever
needing deliver, procmail, mail.local, or such.

Please, don't 'depend' on things unless they are *really* needed.

-- 
Richard W Kaszeta 			Graduate Student/Sysadmin
[email-masked]			University of MN, ME Dept
http://www.menet.umn.edu/~kaszeta

---

From: Lars Wirzenius <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Aug 1996 17:34:40 +0300

> Please, don't 'depend' on things unless they are *really* needed.

OTOH, if not depending on it will let inexperienced people get easily
in trouble, then by all means do depend on something that isn't strictly
needed. Hackers can use --force.

	E = Nu * Tu + Nh * Th

where E is total effort spent solving user problems and answering
questions about Debian, u is inexperienced user, h is hacker, Ni is the
number of questions from class i user, and Ti is average time to answer
question from class i user.

Typically, Tu is about the same as Th, but Nu >> Nh, so we want to
minimize Nu.

However, I don't have an opinion on whether Depends or Recommends is the
better solution for sendmail.

-- 
Lars Wirzenius <[email-masked]> <http://www.iki.fi/liw/>
Please don't Cc: me when replying to my message on a mailing list.

---

From: Ian Jackson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 96 00:34 BST

Lars Wirzenius writes ("Re: Bug#4064: sendmail should recommend deliver, not depend "):
> [...]    Hackers can use --force.   [...]

No.

When I implemented --force I thought people might start to take this
line, but luckily I've been largely wrong so far.  That's not what
they're for.

--force-* is for working around bugs, not for people to do what they
ought to be able to in routine use.

Ian.

---

From: Chris Fearnley <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 21:46:10 -0400 (EDT)

'Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote:'
>Sendmail should come with mail.local instead of deliver IMHO.

Sendmail should be configurable, IMHO.

-- 
Christopher J. Fearnley            |    Linux/Internet Consulting
[email-masked], [email-masked]       |    UNIX SIG Leader at PACS
http://www.netaxs.com/~cjf         |    (Philadelphia Area Computer Society)
ftp://ftp.netaxs.com/people/cjf    |    Design Science Revolutionary
"Dare to be Naive" -- Bucky Fuller |    Explorer in Universe