Re: Mutt dependency on an MTA
On Sat, 31 Jul 1999, Mark Brown wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 30, 1999 at 08:25:25PM -0600, John Galt wrote:
>
> > This would be more of an arguement for a MTA being a priority:required
> > rather than a Depends: on an Extra package. The other question that this
>
> There are a selection of MTAs. No given one of them is required, it's
> just that you ought to have one installed.
Yeah, you ought to have one installed, so why add a redundant dependency
to a MUA? Because a you OUGHT to have a MTA with your MUA as well--not
need, ought: I'm beating a dead horse, but we've only discovered one MUA
that is completely useless without a MTA, mutt (and as far as I'm
concerned, it's just about as useless WITH a MTA)
>
> > begs is: Do these other packages that call sendmail depend on a MTA? Not
> > RECOMMEND, but DEPEND--if not, why the disparity? BTW you're right that a
>
> Policy requires that packages do not depend on any package of lower
> priority, and in any case a recommendation is almost as strong as a
> dependancy in dselect (of course, many people use apt these days).
Policy also requires that a package be made universally useless without
another package before it can be said to depend on it, and I've said it
more times than I care to count: A MUA CAN WORK IN AT LEAST ONE CASE
WITHOUT A LOCAL MTA--that of being used as a POP/IMAP client for a
remote SMTP server, and that's all that's necessary to go from Depends: to
Recommends: PERIOD.
> > MTA is essential, but I'm doubting that it can be said to be a dependency
> > of a MUA, more like a recommends:
>
> For MUAs which send mail by calling sendmail, it is pretty much a
> dependancy.
What if I'm using smail, qmail, or postfix--those are all valid MTAs for
the dependency--but they won't get called when a fork goes out to sendmail
(except smail, I believe it aliases sendmail to itself in installation),
or are you going far afield and postulating a MUA that strictly depends on
sendmail? If you're doing that, credibility is so strained at that point
that we could use /bin/false to send mail--there's so many competing
MTAs that your hypothetical MUA would be defined as broken at the plate.
> --
> Mark Brown mailto:broonie@tardis.ed.ac.uk (Trying to avoid grumpiness)
> http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~broonie/
> EUFS http://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/filmsoc/
>
When you are having a bad day, and it seems like everybody is trying to
tick you off, remember that it takes 42 muscles to produce a frown, but
only 4 muscles to work the trigger of a good sniper rifle.
Who is John galt? Galt@inconnu.isu.edu, that's who!
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