Forgive me plunging into the fray, but...
Mr. Yelich, I doubt a sould would disagree with you if you said,
"Golly, wouldn't a nice comprehensive O'Reilly book be great?
Something like the great classics--the expect book and the Perl camel
book." BTW, such a book is in progress.
You set up a straw man, however, when you slam "the
documentation". True, there is not yet a rich literature, including a
dummies book and a nutshell book, but "the documentation" is quite
complete.
"Scott D. Yelich" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> On Wed, 24 Mar 1999, Adam D. McKenna wrote:
> > ...I went to www.qmail.org and I read man pages for 3 hours. So
> > when someone tells you to RTFM, it might not be because they're
> > trying to be hostile, but that RTFM'ing is really what you need to
> > do in order to start grasping the concepts that go along with this
> > piece of radically different software.
>
> We've addressed this. What do you do when the FM isn't enough?
Straw man. You wrote this mailing list; apparently you do comprehend
that this is a qmail resource. Are you unaware that it is archived?
Having asked questions so inane that they were completely ignored by
the nice folks of this list, I learned through personal shame that TFM
includes the archive of this mailing list, and to a lesser extent
bugtraq and dejanews.
Had you employed those resources, you would have had your
answer--without needing to post a rather obnoxious rant, and starting
a flame-war.
> when is djb coming out with his own unix?
Are you asking, or ranting? Can't quite tell. You should know that
beside qmail, DJB is a regular contributor to bugtraq, faq-keeper of
comp.security.unix and sci.crypt, and writes crypto software. Unlike
Stallman, he doesn't want to replace everything with DJB-ware; just
the stuff that is insecure or faulty.
> Also, what is part of qmail and what isn't?
You downloaded qmail, right? Look very carefully inside the
tarball. There's your answer. Is that RTFM? Or merely the moral
equivalent?
> Does anyone have a list of what is "official" and what is not? does
> anyone care?
The "patch culture" evolved because DJB will not risk qmail's
security, reliability and speed by folding in everyone's pet projects.
Everyone thinks their pet, unlike everyone else's pet, is beautiful
and necessary, and belongs in qmail. DJB resists.
Hence "official patch" is rather an oxymoron. Use what you like, at
your own risk. Personal responsibility is rather bracing--try it out.
Len.
--
26. In Pulling off your Hat to Persons of Distinction, as Noblemen,
Justices, Churchmen &c make a Reverence, bowing more or less according
to the Custom of the Better Bred, and Quality of the Person. Amongst
your equals expect not always that they Should begin with you first,
but to Pull off the Hat when there is no need is Affectation, in the
Manner of Saluting and resaluting in words keep to the most usual Custom.
-- George Washington, "Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour"
