Bug#714634: lsb-core: Remove lsb-invalid-mta as a dependency of lsb-core; require an actual MTA instead
On 07/06/2013 08:39 AM, Aaron Sowry wrote:
> Anyway, we could sit here and discuss the semantics of the LSB
> specification all week, however I'm of the firm belief that the authors
> of the specification did not include a sendmail command just because it
> might be fun to have a command called "sendmail" which does nothing;
> rather, it is intended to be a functional interface through which
> applications can send email. I've CC'd Jeff Licquia on this mail,
> hopefully he can chime in with his thoughts.
<hat type="lsb-spec-author">
The LSB is, first and foremost, about compatibility for apps. If apps
expect something to be there, and for it to act in a certain way, then
that's our top priority. Everything else is secondary.
I don't like lsb-invalid-mta, but as mentioned in the thread leading up
to this bug, we agreed on it with the Ubuntu folks because it at least
preserves app expectations. It was the preferred alternative to
Ubuntu's planned move: just get rid of the MTA requirement entirely, and
thus break compatibility. To the extent that lsb-invalid-mta preserves
app compatibility, therefore, it's OK by us; not ideal, or even
recommended, but a valid option.
Apps expect sendmail to be there, and they are expected to be able to
handle errors sendmail might produce (especially with something as
potentially flaky as email). The lsb-invalid-mta package satisfies
those criteria.
Whether Debian decides that they want to support MTA-less configurations
using lsb-invalid-mta is up to Debian.
</hat>
<hat type="debian-developer">
Since we install an MTA by default, I expect that there are very few
installations of lsb-invalid-mta (perhaps none). So I don't think
getting rid of it for jessie is necessarily out of the question. It
certainly doesn't serve the same purpose in Debian as it does in Ubuntu.
I will say that I enthusiastically support this part of the change, and
would advocate that it happen:
>> That's probably where I'd be open to changes: making lsb-core depend on
>> "default-mta | mail-transport-agent" on Debian (and still lsb-invalid-
>> mta | mail-transport-agent" on Ubuntu) might be a worthwhile change.
I'd even support this as a bug-fix for wheezy, not just in jessie.
>> That said, we released Wheezy with both lsb-invalid-mta and the
>> dependency on it from lsb-core so we would need to respect the choice of
>> admins that actually _want_ a non-working sendmail in their lsb
>> dependencies across upgrades.
>
> This isn't really an administrator's problem, it's a problem for
> developers of applications designed to be run on LSB-compliant systems.
> I can't think of any reason an administrator would ever "want" a
> non-functional sendmail command on their system.
I believe this ship has sailed for wheezy, certainly. But for jessie, I
tend to agree with Aaron. Too much stuff on a Debian system assumes a
working MTA to make lsb-invalid-mta an interesting choice for Debian
users. So dropping it wouldn't necessarily be bad for our users.
That said, I'm not dogmatic about it. If we want to make the choice
available, cool. Just as long as the choice isn't the default (i.e.
Depends: default-mta | mail-transport-agent).
</hat>
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