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Re: Bug#275685: ITP: msmtp -- smtp client which can be used as a smtp plugin with mutt



Scripsit George Danchev <danchev@spnet.net>
> On Monday 11 October 2004 19:18, Henning Makholm wrote:

> > The definition of mail-transport-agent is that it provides a
> > /usr/sbin/sendmail that local software can use to submit emails for
> > delivery to arbitrary addresses with some reasonable expectation that
> > it will actually be delivered.

> MTA is a software talking at least one Mail Transfer Protocol (like SMTP, 
> UUCP, X.400 ...)

That is not what mail-transport-agent means in Debian.

> > It is *not* required that the package that provides
> > mail-transport-agent must itself do any particular part of the
> > delivery process, as long as its /usr/sbin/sendmail will *somehow*
> > arrange for delivery.

> Are you talking about MDA here ;-).

No.

> Delivery agents are used to place a message into a user's mail-box.

Yes, and nullmailer (and probably msmtp) does not do that. A
mail-transport-agent does not need to be a delivery agent too.

> Such a package must talk at least one Mail Trasfer Protocol to be
> called MTA.

False, not for the meaning of mail-transport-agent we use in Debian.

> Providing /usr/sbin/sendmail is required but not enough to call it
> MTA.

Providing /usr/sbin/sendmail is the necessary and sufficient condition
to be a mail-transport-agent.

> msmtp has not the features of a MTA,

As it has been explained her, msmsp has exactly the features of a
mail-transport-agent.

> Providing /usr/sbin/sendmail is required, but not enough to call it MTA.

Providing /usr/sbin/sendmail is the necessary and sufficient condition
to be a mail-transport-agent.

> > MTA that it requires some manual configuration before its
> > /usr/sbin/sendmail can do anything useful with its input. Most MTA's
> > do, actually.

> Satifying package's Depends: is in the domain of packaging system handlers. 
> Ever seen any debian/control ?

You are talking nonsense. Inter-package dependencies are for
expressing requirements on which packages must be installed on the
same machine. Software running on other machines is explicitly not
included.

> p.s. s/an MTA/a MTA

The letter M is pronounced [em], which starts with a wowel
sound. Hence the proper article is "an", not "a".

-- 
Henning Makholm               "The Board views the endemic use of PowerPoint
                           briefing slides instead of technical papers as an
 illustration of the problematic methods of technical communicaion at NASA."



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