RFC: Sendmail deprecation ?

[Daniel Eischen]

On Dec 11, 2017, at 2:59 PM, Sean Chittenden <sean at chittenden.org> wrote:

> +1 for deprecating this from base and giving people the choice to `pkg install
> sendmail`.  For everyone else deploying large numbers of systems, this is
> tedious to rip out and yet-another-thing to explain as a requirement when
> operationalizing FreeBSD for production workloads.

I do tend to agree with rgrimes, when -base is pkg-ized, folks will have a chance to 'pkg install' or 'pkg remove' sendmail or anything else regardless of whether it is in -base or -ports.  The question should be, where do we want to maintain it?  (There's also the history that exists in base that gets disconnected when it's in ports.)

-base is a set of packages that we deem more important than ports.  Does sendmail, as it is exists and configured in -base, pass muster for being something that we consider important enough to warrant being in base?  I think this is more of the question to ask than "why can't they install it from ports?"  Consensus seems to indicate no, but that we need some mail delivery agent.

I also think it should be incumbent on whomever removes something from -base to make a port of it.  I don't think we should just throw it over the fence and expect the ports team to do the work, unless they volunteer for it.

--
DE