forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Tom Tromey]

Maybe we should switch to Postfix at some point in the future.
I believe it is free software, which qmail isn't.
Or is performance not the only reason we use qmail?

Tom


------- start of forwarded message (RFC 934 encapsulation) -------
Content-Length: -1978
Received: from lists.tummy.com (dev.tummy.com [216.17.150.53])
	by runyon.cygnus.com (8.8.7-cygnus/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA05760
	for <tromey@cygnus.com>; Wed, 19 Jul 2000 08:00:15 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (qmail 5623 invoked from network); 19 Jul 2000 14:59:52 -0000
Received: from localhost (HELO dev.tummy.com) (alias@127.0.0.1)
  by localhost with SMTP; 19 Jul 2000 14:59:52 -0000
Received: (qmail 5402 invoked from network); 19 Jul 2000 14:59:38 -0000
Received: from www.tummy.com (HELO tummy.com) (qmailr@216.17.150.34)
  by lists.lug.boulder.co.us with SMTP; 19 Jul 2000 14:59:38 -0000
Received: (qmail 15466 invoked by alias); 19 Jul 2000 14:59:37 -0000
Received: (qmail 15463 invoked from network); 19 Jul 2000 14:59:37 -0000
Received: from gwco.tummy.com (HELO tummy.com) (noone@216.17.150.33)
  by www.tummy.com with SMTP; 19 Jul 2000 14:59:37 -0000
Received: (qmail 19674 invoked by uid 10); 19 Jul 2000 14:59:36 -0000
Received: (qmail 26314 invoked by uid 500); 19 Jul 2000 14:59:24 -0000
Delivered-To: blugdom-lug@lists.lug.boulder.co.us
Delivered-To: blugdom-lug@lug.boulder.co.us
Message-ID: <20000719085924.D12151@tummy.com>
References: <200007191420.IAA01506@prime.math.byu.edu> <Pine.BSF.4.05.10007190738510.90379-100000@idiom.com> <200007191443.HAA21866@ferrule.cygnus.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Disposition: inline
User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i
In-Reply-To: <200007191443.HAA21866@ferrule.cygnus.com>; from tromey@cygnus.com on Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 07:43:00AM -0700
Reply-To: lug@lug.boulder.co.us
Errors-To: lug-admin@lug.boulder.co.us
X-Mailman-Version: 1.0
Precedence: bulk
List-Id: Boulder (Colorado) Linux Users Group -- General Mailing List <lug.lug.boulder.co.us>
X-BeenThere: lug@lug.boulder.co.us
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
X-UIDL: 69e68700e7f5931baaebf8de1eb2108f
From: Sean Reifschneider <jafo@tummy.com>
Sender: lug-admin@lug.boulder.co.us
To: lug@lug.boulder.co.us
Subject: Re: [lug] mail servers
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 08:59:24 -0600

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 07:43:00AM -0700, Tom Tromey wrote:
>How is the performance?

Postfix has a similar performance profile to qmail.  The benchmarking I did
about a year ago suggests that postfix may even be faster than QMail at
sending out mail to a ton of recipients (400,000 unique messages).  The
reason we didn't end up using Postfix was that at that time it didn't
implement bounce handling as we expected.

Postfix is pretty cool, it has some very neat features.  I still use
QMail mostly because I'm *VERY* familiar with it.

Sean
- -- 
 Do bad programmers wake up on Christmas morning to find coal in
 their sockets?  -- Sean Reifschneider
Sean Reifschneider, Inimitably Superfluous <jafo@tummy.com>
tummy.com - Linux Consulting since 1995. Qmail, KRUD, Firewalls, Python

_______________________________________________
Web Page:  http://lug.boulder.co.us
Mailing List: http://lists.lug.boulder.co.us/mailman/listinfo/lug

------- end -------

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Jason Molenda]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 08:02:08AM -0700, Tom Tromey wrote:
> Maybe we should switch to Postfix at some point in the future.

I wouldn't disagree - I've heard good mumblings about postfix.
Changing the MTA is a big deal, though, so it would require someone
who really loves Postfix and wants to spend a lot of time migrating
the thing.  It took me months to get all of the mailing lists moved
from cygnus to sourceware (of course, most of that time was spent
dealing with people).

> I believe it is free software, which qmail isn't.
> Or is performance not the only reason we use qmail?

Qmail is awful close to libre.  It has an odd license that doesn't
allow you to distribute modified sources sources, but there are no
restrictions on its use.

J

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Chris Faylor]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 10:28:12AM -0700, Jason Molenda wrote:
>On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 08:02:08AM -0700, Tom Tromey wrote:
>> Maybe we should switch to Postfix at some point in the future.
>
>I wouldn't disagree - I've heard good mumblings about postfix.
>Changing the MTA is a big deal, though, so it would require someone
>who really loves Postfix and wants to spend a lot of time migrating
>the thing.  It took me months to get all of the mailing lists moved
>from cygnus to sourceware (of course, most of that time was spent
>dealing with people).

I've been following the postfix mailing list for a long time.  I
actually downloaded a version to run on my system and went through most
of the setup.  It was relatively easy.  I just got sidetracked and never
finished.

I think it is supposed to be slightly faster than qmail but I don't know
if it has any mailing list software associated with it.  Doesn't ezmlm
rely on qmail?

cgf

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Ian Lance Taylor]

   From: Chris Faylor <cgf@cygnus.com>
   Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 14:17:40 -0400

   I think it is supposed to be slightly faster than qmail but I don't know
   if it has any mailing list software associated with it.  Doesn't ezmlm
   rely on qmail?

ezmlm relies on qmail's VERP capability.  I don't know if Postfix has
that.  ezmlm probably has some other minor dependencies on qmail which
would be easy to fix.  ezmlm is probably as free or non-free as qmail
itself is.

qmail is probably free in the same sense that qt is: you can't
distribute changed versions, but you are probably allowed to
distribute patches to it ( http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html ).  You are
also restricted from distributing qmail binaries unless you have not
changed the source code.

Postfix supposedly has a bug in which one local user can prevent
another local user from receiving mail, but that probably does not
matter for sourceware.  See
    http://cr.yp.to/maildisasters/postfix.html
I don't know if that is still up to date.

I'm more or less a qmail fan.  I'm also running Bernstein's DNS
replacement, djbdns.

Ian

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Ian Lance Taylor]

   Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 10:28:12 -0700
   From: Jason Molenda <jason-swarelist@molenda.com>

   > I believe it is free software, which qmail isn't.
   > Or is performance not the only reason we use qmail?

   Qmail is awful close to libre.  It has an odd license that doesn't
   allow you to distribute modified sources sources, but there are no
   restrictions on its use.

I'll just note that it appears that although Bernstein probably does
not permit modified sources to be distributed, he probably does allow
patches to be distributed.

Bernstein generally refuses to speak directly to these sorts of
concerns.  I'm not sure what his motivations are.

Ian

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Jason Molenda]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 12:49:52PM -0700, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:

> I'll just note that it appears that although Bernstein probably does
> not permit modified sources to be distributed, he probably does allow
> patches to be distributed.

Yeah, I think it's clear that he's not objecting to that practice
(given the massive lists of patches on qmail.org and ezmlm.org).

> Bernstein generally refuses to speak directly to these sorts of
> concerns.  I'm not sure what his motivations are.

From what I've seen while learning/admining qmail, he seems to have
a "I can do better than existing tools" approach and ends up
reimplementing lots of stuff.  (and frankly, much of what he
reimplements does seem to work better than the standard tools) I'd
bet his concerns have something to do with worries that a 'helpful'
volunteer will make lower quality releases under the same name,
and he wants to control that name and reputation.

This is total speculation on my part, though.

J

PS-  I just noticed that the MAPS vs ORBS thing hit slashdot today.
Lots of noise, little information, as usual.

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Jeffrey A Law]

  In message < 20000719182605.4668.qmail@daffy.airs.com >you write:
  >    From: Chris Faylor <cgf@cygnus.com>
  >    Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 14:17:40 -0400
  > 
  >    I think it is supposed to be slightly faster than qmail but I don't know
  >    if it has any mailing list software associated with it.  Doesn't ezmlm
  >    rely on qmail?
  > 
  > ezmlm relies on qmail's VERP capability.  I don't know if Postfix has
  > that.  ezmlm probably has some other minor dependencies on qmail which
  > would be easy to fix.  ezmlm is probably as free or non-free as qmail
  > itself is.
ezmlm is GPL.

jeff

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Chris Faylor]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 01:32:11PM -0700, Jason Molenda wrote:
>PS-  I just noticed that the MAPS vs ORBS thing hit slashdot today.
>Lots of noise, little information, as usual.

Huh.  I've been unable to get through to slashdot.org for an hour
or so.  The conspiracy is widening...

cgf

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Tom Tromey]

Chris> Huh.  I've been unable to get through to slashdot.org for an hour
Chris> or so.  The conspiracy is widening...

I don't read slashdot.org any more.  Now I get the articles via email
from DJ's service, and I don't bother reading the user comments.

T

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Jeffrey A Law]

  In message < 200007191502.IAA21877@ferrule.cygnus.com >you write:
  > Maybe we should switch to Postfix at some point in the future.
  > I believe it is free software, which qmail isn't.
  > Or is performance not the only reason we use qmail?
Performance + ezmlm's capabilities to auto-manage most list actions.


jeff

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Jason Molenda]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 02:34:36PM -0600, Jeffrey A Law wrote:

> ezmlm is GPL.

No, the idx patches to ezmlm are GPL'ed.  I just checked and I can't find
any license in ezmlm 0.53 at all....  but the fact that the idx extensions
are distributed as patches gives me the impression that ezmlm is considered
to be under the same license as qmail.

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Ian Lance Taylor]

   Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 10:28:12 -0700
   From: Jason Molenda <jason-swarelist@molenda.com>

   > I believe it is free software, which qmail isn't.
   > Or is performance not the only reason we use qmail?

   Qmail is awful close to libre.  It has an odd license that doesn't
   allow you to distribute modified sources sources, but there are no
   restrictions on its use.

I'll just note that it appears that although Bernstein probably does
not permit modified sources to be distributed, he probably does allow
patches to be distributed.

Bernstein generally refuses to speak directly to these sorts of
concerns.  I'm not sure what his motivations are.

Ian

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Jeffrey A Law]

  In message < 20000719182605.4668.qmail@daffy.airs.com >you write:
  >    From: Chris Faylor <cgf@cygnus.com>
  >    Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 14:17:40 -0400
  > 
  >    I think it is supposed to be slightly faster than qmail but I don't know
  >    if it has any mailing list software associated with it.  Doesn't ezmlm
  >    rely on qmail?
  > 
  > ezmlm relies on qmail's VERP capability.  I don't know if Postfix has
  > that.  ezmlm probably has some other minor dependencies on qmail which
  > would be easy to fix.  ezmlm is probably as free or non-free as qmail
  > itself is.
ezmlm is GPL.

jeff

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Tom Tromey]

Chris> Huh.  I've been unable to get through to slashdot.org for an hour
Chris> or so.  The conspiracy is widening...

I don't read slashdot.org any more.  Now I get the articles via email
from DJ's service, and I don't bother reading the user comments.

T

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Jason Molenda]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 02:34:36PM -0600, Jeffrey A Law wrote:

> ezmlm is GPL.

No, the idx patches to ezmlm are GPL'ed.  I just checked and I can't find
any license in ezmlm 0.53 at all....  but the fact that the idx extensions
are distributed as patches gives me the impression that ezmlm is considered
to be under the same license as qmail.

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Jason Molenda]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 08:02:08AM -0700, Tom Tromey wrote:
> Maybe we should switch to Postfix at some point in the future.

I wouldn't disagree - I've heard good mumblings about postfix.
Changing the MTA is a big deal, though, so it would require someone
who really loves Postfix and wants to spend a lot of time migrating
the thing.  It took me months to get all of the mailing lists moved
from cygnus to sourceware (of course, most of that time was spent
dealing with people).

> I believe it is free software, which qmail isn't.
> Or is performance not the only reason we use qmail?

Qmail is awful close to libre.  It has an odd license that doesn't
allow you to distribute modified sources sources, but there are no
restrictions on its use.

J

forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Tom Tromey]

Maybe we should switch to Postfix at some point in the future.
I believe it is free software, which qmail isn't.
Or is performance not the only reason we use qmail?

Tom


------- start of forwarded message (RFC 934 encapsulation) -------
Content-Length: -1978
Received: from lists.tummy.com (dev.tummy.com [216.17.150.53])
	by runyon.cygnus.com (8.8.7-cygnus/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA05760
	for <tromey@cygnus.com>; Wed, 19 Jul 2000 08:00:15 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (qmail 5623 invoked from network); 19 Jul 2000 14:59:52 -0000
Received: from localhost (HELO dev.tummy.com) (alias@127.0.0.1)
  by localhost with SMTP; 19 Jul 2000 14:59:52 -0000
Received: (qmail 5402 invoked from network); 19 Jul 2000 14:59:38 -0000
Received: from www.tummy.com (HELO tummy.com) (qmailr@216.17.150.34)
  by lists.lug.boulder.co.us with SMTP; 19 Jul 2000 14:59:38 -0000
Received: (qmail 15466 invoked by alias); 19 Jul 2000 14:59:37 -0000
Received: (qmail 15463 invoked from network); 19 Jul 2000 14:59:37 -0000
Received: from gwco.tummy.com (HELO tummy.com) (noone@216.17.150.33)
  by www.tummy.com with SMTP; 19 Jul 2000 14:59:37 -0000
Received: (qmail 19674 invoked by uid 10); 19 Jul 2000 14:59:36 -0000
Received: (qmail 26314 invoked by uid 500); 19 Jul 2000 14:59:24 -0000
Delivered-To: blugdom-lug@lists.lug.boulder.co.us
Delivered-To: blugdom-lug@lug.boulder.co.us
Message-ID: <20000719085924.D12151@tummy.com>
References: <200007191420.IAA01506@prime.math.byu.edu> <Pine.BSF.4.05.10007190738510.90379-100000@idiom.com> <200007191443.HAA21866@ferrule.cygnus.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Disposition: inline
User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i
In-Reply-To: <200007191443.HAA21866@ferrule.cygnus.com>; from tromey@cygnus.com on Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 07:43:00AM -0700
Reply-To: lug@lug.boulder.co.us
Errors-To: lug-admin@lug.boulder.co.us
X-Mailman-Version: 1.0
Precedence: bulk
List-Id: Boulder (Colorado) Linux Users Group -- General Mailing List <lug.lug.boulder.co.us>
X-BeenThere: lug@lug.boulder.co.us
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
X-UIDL: 69e68700e7f5931baaebf8de1eb2108f
From: Sean Reifschneider <jafo@tummy.com>
Sender: lug-admin@lug.boulder.co.us
To: lug@lug.boulder.co.us
Subject: Re: [lug] mail servers
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 08:59:24 -0600

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 07:43:00AM -0700, Tom Tromey wrote:
>How is the performance?

Postfix has a similar performance profile to qmail.  The benchmarking I did
about a year ago suggests that postfix may even be faster than QMail at
sending out mail to a ton of recipients (400,000 unique messages).  The
reason we didn't end up using Postfix was that at that time it didn't
implement bounce handling as we expected.

Postfix is pretty cool, it has some very neat features.  I still use
QMail mostly because I'm *VERY* familiar with it.

Sean
- -- 
 Do bad programmers wake up on Christmas morning to find coal in
 their sockets?  -- Sean Reifschneider
Sean Reifschneider, Inimitably Superfluous <jafo@tummy.com>
tummy.com - Linux Consulting since 1995. Qmail, KRUD, Firewalls, Python

_______________________________________________
Web Page:  http://lug.boulder.co.us
Mailing List: http://lists.lug.boulder.co.us/mailman/listinfo/lug

------- end -------

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Jason Molenda]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 12:49:52PM -0700, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:

> I'll just note that it appears that although Bernstein probably does
> not permit modified sources to be distributed, he probably does allow
> patches to be distributed.

Yeah, I think it's clear that he's not objecting to that practice
(given the massive lists of patches on qmail.org and ezmlm.org).

> Bernstein generally refuses to speak directly to these sorts of
> concerns.  I'm not sure what his motivations are.

From what I've seen while learning/admining qmail, he seems to have
a "I can do better than existing tools" approach and ends up
reimplementing lots of stuff.  (and frankly, much of what he
reimplements does seem to work better than the standard tools) I'd
bet his concerns have something to do with worries that a 'helpful'
volunteer will make lower quality releases under the same name,
and he wants to control that name and reputation.

This is total speculation on my part, though.

J

PS-  I just noticed that the MAPS vs ORBS thing hit slashdot today.
Lots of noise, little information, as usual.

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Chris Faylor]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 10:28:12AM -0700, Jason Molenda wrote:
>On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 08:02:08AM -0700, Tom Tromey wrote:
>> Maybe we should switch to Postfix at some point in the future.
>
>I wouldn't disagree - I've heard good mumblings about postfix.
>Changing the MTA is a big deal, though, so it would require someone
>who really loves Postfix and wants to spend a lot of time migrating
>the thing.  It took me months to get all of the mailing lists moved
>from cygnus to sourceware (of course, most of that time was spent
>dealing with people).

I've been following the postfix mailing list for a long time.  I
actually downloaded a version to run on my system and went through most
of the setup.  It was relatively easy.  I just got sidetracked and never
finished.

I think it is supposed to be slightly faster than qmail but I don't know
if it has any mailing list software associated with it.  Doesn't ezmlm
rely on qmail?

cgf

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Ian Lance Taylor]

   From: Chris Faylor <cgf@cygnus.com>
   Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 14:17:40 -0400

   I think it is supposed to be slightly faster than qmail but I don't know
   if it has any mailing list software associated with it.  Doesn't ezmlm
   rely on qmail?

ezmlm relies on qmail's VERP capability.  I don't know if Postfix has
that.  ezmlm probably has some other minor dependencies on qmail which
would be easy to fix.  ezmlm is probably as free or non-free as qmail
itself is.

qmail is probably free in the same sense that qt is: you can't
distribute changed versions, but you are probably allowed to
distribute patches to it ( http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html ).  You are
also restricted from distributing qmail binaries unless you have not
changed the source code.

Postfix supposedly has a bug in which one local user can prevent
another local user from receiving mail, but that probably does not
matter for sourceware.  See
    http://cr.yp.to/maildisasters/postfix.html
I don't know if that is still up to date.

I'm more or less a qmail fan.  I'm also running Bernstein's DNS
replacement, djbdns.

Ian

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Chris Faylor]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 01:32:11PM -0700, Jason Molenda wrote:
>PS-  I just noticed that the MAPS vs ORBS thing hit slashdot today.
>Lots of noise, little information, as usual.

Huh.  I've been unable to get through to slashdot.org for an hour
or so.  The conspiracy is widening...

cgf

Re: forwarded message from Sean Reifschneider

[Jeffrey A Law]

  In message < 200007191502.IAA21877@ferrule.cygnus.com >you write:
  > Maybe we should switch to Postfix at some point in the future.
  > I believe it is free software, which qmail isn't.
  > Or is performance not the only reason we use qmail?
Performance + ezmlm's capabilities to auto-manage most list actions.


jeff