Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?

[Frank Shute]

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 09:24:58PM +0200, Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
>
[big snip]
> 
> Until then, the status quo is here because it works, it has been stable
> for a very long time, and it serves its current purpose "well enough".
> 

I don't use sendmail but it's easy enough to build a different MTA out
of ports (at least Postfix is easy) and turn off sendmail, as others
have pointed out.

I can imagine that a lot of people do use sendmail - it's documented
in the handbook for starters. If it was taken out and replaced with
another MTA then there would be complaints that sendmail has been
taken out or "replacement MTA" is the "wrong one".

If somebody's insane enough to write the patches to replace sendmail
(will they be accepted?), then they are also going to have to replace
all the hooks for removing the MTA, like sendmail currently has; and
they're going to have to document the MTA in the handbook.

They'll also need a thick skin to handle all the brickbats that come
their way ;)

I can think of many ways to more fruitfully spend the time that it
would take to remove sendmail from base. Removing it from base would
also mean that others have to spend time reconfiguring their system(s):
not good.

I vote for sendmail, even though I'm a postfix user!

I don't like change for no good reason and nobody's supplied a good
reason yet.

Regards,

-- 

 Frank

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