Matthias Buelow <mkb@mukappabeta.de> writes:
> Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> 
> > I would strongly oppose removing the MTAs from the base source, for
> > the same reason we keep things like awk or vi in the base source. We
> > do not, technically speaking "need" vi or awk or what have
> > you. However, the system experience is made substantially better by
> > having these things managed in basesrc.
> 
> But, in contrast with vi or awk, what should the MTA be good for?  For
> individual workstations it's in most cases a complete overkill and
> when it's listening on the 'net per default, it's also a security
> risk.

1) For a workstation, it is nice to be able to get mail delivered
   out. mini_sendmail does not queue or retry if the server is down.
2) We do not by default listen on anything. Both Postfix and Sendmail
   can be easily configured not to listen. Both can also be configured
   just to punt mail to a smarthost.

> And for a dedicated mailserver it's not very useful either,
> since the version shipped is too old,

It should in fact be the latest Sendmail and the latest Postfix as of
the time of shipment. In both cases, we're pretty close.

As for "why both Sendmail and Postfix", well, the thing is, I'd prefer
to get rid of Sendmail and just ship Postfix, but I know this would be
politically sensitive, and unlike many people my taste is not to rip
out functionality some people find useful. That's why, for instance, I
wrote mailwrapper -- so it was not necessary to force people to
choose, but we could accomodate both tastes.

Perry