[CentOS-devel] Small Business SIG suggestion

[John Crisp]

On 02/05/14 20:28, Omar Eljumaily wrote:

> 
> Some of the things I probably will not do on a home server which are 
> listed on your proposal:
> 
> Postfix
> Cyrus IMAP (or Dovecot)
> SpamAssassin
> ClamAV (from EPEL) (perhaps, but not for email)
> OpenSSL for user certificates
> 

I think you are missing the point of many of the small server systems
out there.

First, most are geared to small businesses, not the home user, hence
Koozali 'SME' server. It was born as a Linux distro with an easy to use
interface and aimed at squarely business.

Note 'SME' : Small and Medium Enterprise.

Why ? Ultimately that's where the money is - businesses know the value
of paying towards the software that helps them make a profit.

Remember also that software might be 'open source' but that does not
equate to 'free to build'. Someone has to pay for the infrastructure to
make it all happen !

Ultimately, the home user gets something of a 'free ride' on the back of
this and gets the benefit of a business strength server at home......

Second, most try to simplify the administration experience with easy to
use management panels etc etc. That means that if you don't want email
you can easily turn it off.

So you may not WANT all those items, but it won't hurt you if they are
there and you can disable them with a click of a button or a simple command.

Quite honestly if items such as email are being developed for the
business version it makes no sense to remove them and/or to develop a
'home' version. Hence you have Microsoft SBS, but they don't sell a home
server - there's no value in it.

Of course you could easily use SBS at home, but then you don't want to
pay the licence fee.....

If you think you can make a viable case for a separate 'Home' server
then please do. However, I think you will find that experience has shown
that it doesn't pay.

To be honest, I personally think that your best effort would be geared
towards making plugins/contributions for home users.

At Koozali SME we are happy for contributors to add their own software
to enhance the basic functionality of the server and there are a
multitude of 'contribs' for exactly this purpose. IMHO this is much the
better direction to take.

B. Rgds
John