[NTLUG:Discuss] mailserver

[Richard Cobbe]

Lo, on Friday, 8 September, 2000, bobby at wrennest.com did write:

> Since it has come up again, I will try this question again. In a Window$
> environment I can get one package (SLMail) for a reasonable price and
> have complete email service (list, groups, alias, forwards, etc.) in
> under 30 minutes. I know the server has to be rebooted now and then but
> the software works. I don't have to get a degree to install it. And the
> interface is simple enough I can have a non-PC literate person adding
> and deleting users in under 30 minutes.

See several other posters for a good description.

> I know "Real Geeks" want it to be hard enough that only the truly devout
> can master "The System". But really folks I still am not sure what all
> the pieces are. Much less how to configure them.

While it's certainly understandable that you feel this way, that's not
really why "Real Geeks" produce such complex software, but see below.

Unix software is complex not to provide barriers to entry, but rather to
provide maximum flexibility and configurability.  Eric Allman, the main
developer behind sendmail (one of the MTAs people have mentioned) has a
wonderful quote that explains this phenomenon.  Unfortunately, I don't
remember his exact words, but they were something like "The real world is a
very complex place, and sendmail configuration reflects that."

Historically, Unix users have been willing to invest more time and effort
to learn a system if it means that the system will be able to do *EXACTLY*
what they want.  We're all control freaks, in other words.

Of course, unix folks have historically *enjoyed* working with complex
systems, perhaps for reasons that don't always involve the greater
flexibility I mention above, so there's perhaps less pressure towards
ease-of-use and "intuitiveness"---whatever *that* means.  I think it would
be unfair, though, to claim that unix software developers go out of their
way to deliberately make the software hard to use.

Richard