Re: Mutt dependency on an MTA
On Fri, Jul 30, 1999 at 10:22:07AM -0600, John Galt wrote:
> to check my POPmail until I rebuilt the system :( ). As for a MUA that
> doesn't require a MTA not being a useful solution for many users, look at
> the popularity of fetchmail, a MTA that is mostly for grabbing POP mail:
I wouldn't classify fetchmail as an MTA; it doesn't do any of the same
things. Besides, fetchmail needs a local MTA to actually deliver the mail
it has retrieved. It's more like a mail retrieval agent (MRA, if there was
such a term).
> wouldn't it be a more elegant solution to simply remove all MTAs from the
> system and use a MUA that has POP/IMAP retrieval capabilities in that
> particular case? Installing something for a portion of it's usefulness is
> NEVER an elegant solution, in fact, I'd call it a kludge offhand. There
> ARE MUAs that need no local MTA to do the job they're installed for, so
> why force users into installing a package that might never see use at
> all--sounds like the MUA really didn't depend on the MTA at all, doesn't
I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill. For most users,
those MUAs depend on an MTA. For a few users, it may not be required.
How do you suggest we handle that? If you make eg mutt only recommend
mail-transport-agent, then dselect users get it anyway (since dselect
makes recommends almost as strong as depends), and apt-get users (who
in most cases do want an MTA) won't get it. So absolutely nobody benefits.
What's the harm in having an MTA installed even if you don't use it? It
doesn't interfere. Actually, a few system tasks depend on having an MTA;
cron will email you the text output (if any) of your cron jobs, for
example. I think a unix system without an MTA would be broken.
> lie. I never used mutt much, so can't say for sure if it can use a remote
> host's MTA and POP/IMAP, but if it can, then it can function without a
> MTA, so the dependency should therefore be reclassified.
It can do POP, but doesn't (TTBOMK) support delivery except via the local MTA.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB (ex-VK3TYD).
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