[CentOS] Kind of OT: internal imap server

Fri Aug 25 15:19:46 UTC 2006
chrism at imntv.com <chrism at imntv.com>

Feizhou wrote:
>
>>> [1] qmail's license used to be source distribution only, because 
>>> that locked out anyone unable to compile it and its dependent 
>>> packages and "killed the weak".  Mail isn't that hard!  Mortals can 
>>> get Postfix going!
>>>     
>>
>> That's not the worst part of the license. The real problem is that
>> qmail as written has several logical flaws, the above-mentioned
>> being the most obvious, and the license states that no one is
>> allowed to distribute modified versions so it can't be fixed
>> without completely replacing components.
>>   
> There is a slight workaround. One can distribute the original + source 
> + patches and a script that does the patching/installing. Hence the 
> netqmail-1.05 version.
>
> Les, quit making false statements about qmail. qmail does not have any 
> logical flaws otherwise Wietse would not follow the same design 
> principles in postfix after his spat with DJB. qmail's problem is that 
> the author has not done any updates to it since 1998 to handle the 
> changed needs required of a MTA software since then. SMTP is broken 
> which is why spammers and virus writers can create so much trouble. 
> Both SMTP and qmail were designed in an environment very different 
> from what we have now. That is why we have ESMTP and what not updates 
> to the SMTP protocol.
>
> qmail is a fine piece of software and it also introduced the maildir 
> format which is now widely supported and used by anyone who cares 
> about the integrity of their mailboxes. I cannot understand what you 
> have against qmail to go around bad mouthing it. Don't tell me a 
> stuffed queue and perhaps a listing in some over zealous RBL was all 
> it took.

And what exactly does any of this have to do with CentOS?  Personally, I 
dumped qmail back in the 90's when it became apparent what a flaming 
horse's hiney DJB was.  Wietse has been a lot easier to deal with, quick 
with patches, and just an overall nice fellow.  So I've used postfix 
since 98-ish without incident and still use it today.  It's fast, easy 
to configure, and it is well supported by Redhat (and by extension) and 
CentOS (see, this is sorta on topic now).  So while I could go through 
all these gyrations to make qmail work...blah blah blah....why should 
I?  If you'd like to continue this, I'd be happy to do it off list.

Cheers,

Chris