Re: postfix as default-mta? [Re: Bug#508644: new release goal default-mta?]
On Sun, May 10 2009, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Sat, May 09, 2009 at 10:22:40PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> On Sat, May 09 2009, Don Armstrong wrote:
>
>> > On Sat, 09 May 2009, Steve Langasek wrote:
>> >> My point is precisely that I don't think there are any salient
>> >> technical advantages of one over the other.
>
>> > Just going by what MTAs -ctte members are running, it'd be 3, 2, 2
>> > (postfix, exim, and sendmail.) [Though I honestly wouldn't suggest
>> > sendmail as the default, Manoj probably would. ;-)]
>
>> While I do prefer sendmail, I think there is one technical issue
>> you guys are glossing over: The fact that we have an installed base of
>> Exim, and documentation all over the place that assumes the Debian
>> default is Exim,
>
> Such as? I haven't seen any documentation that makes this assumption.
>
>> and given that other things appear equal (Exim, postfix, and sendmail all
>> meet technical requirements, all are supported by strong communities,
>> etc), the minimal disruption to a tested setup rule applies -- and Exim
>> has a strong lead over theothers, my personal preference notwithstanding.
>
> According to popcon, only about 68% of Debian users have exim4 installed,
> and 18% have postfix installed. I don't think that's much of a lead for
> exim4, considering most of the exim4 installs are probably due solely to its
> status as a default.
popcon is a silly way to try to suss what a default is,
really. How one figures that out is to try and install a new Debian
system, and one where some package calls for a mail-transport-agent
dependency, and see what gets installed by default.
The answer is Exim, and that is what makes it the default.
That, and since more than two thrds of all Debian users likely
have Exim installed, and less than one fith have postfix, seems like a
significant lead to me.
Given that, I would say that churning the installation by making
a supermajority of sites change their MTA seems like a non-starter to
me.
manoj
--
My parents went to Niagara Falls and all I got was this crummy life.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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