Re: [Nmh-workers] external MTA (was: nmh @ gsoc?)
On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:04:15 +0100, markus schnalke said: Use a simple forwarding MTA (like nullmailer or ssmtp) instead. Still more complicated than the one-line change to one file it took to change the SMTP server in nmh. ;) For the user, shipping an own forwarder is not much different than providing a good tutorial on how to use an external program for the job. And if it is a problem, then this user is hardly a user of nmh anyway. /me looks around and finds some files under ~/Mail that date to 1988... pgpE8GKEzT8Ca.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [Nmh-workers] Re: should nmh be an MTA or an MUA?
On January 29, 2010 at 11:36, markus schnalke wrote: What exactly do you mean with ``users''? If you mean people that are no programmers, then I agree. If you mean us, then I don't. I consider non-programmers. If not, nmh will just be a nitch MUA, and probably over time, die a slow death. Not too many appreciate the power that nmh offers, but the command-line (for whatever reasons) gets a bad rap. Humans are visual creatues, so GUIs have a natural allure, even if poorly written. Now I see why we do not understand each other: - For you, nmh is a system that provides everything for emailing. - For me it is an MUA. From your POV, nmh *should* include an MTA, a fetch program, and so forth. From my POV, it should *not*. No, you project thoughts onto me to help support your argument. I see nmh as an MUA. Period. See a separate post that quotes RFC(s) on what the definition of a MUA is and what its role is in the mail system: http://www.mhonarc.org/archive/html/nmh-workers/2010-01/msg00078.html I, and others, are only talking about the retrieval of mail from an MTA and the submission of mail to a MSA or MTA. Maybe you need to revisit the definitions and roles of the various parts of the mail system. Submission of mail is an MUA function. If in the usage context of nmh, the achieval of that submission happens to be achieved via some third party program, it is STILL an MUA function, not an MTA function. I say: Write software for yourselfs, because otherwise you won't do it well anyway. This statement seems to contradict the anti-NIH perspective. I want to motivate to forget the difference between library and program. Separate instead of integrate. I understand this, basic abstraction principles. Where you are off is what the functional role of an MUA is. You are attributing MUA-based functions as MTA functions. Is the burden more on the the application developer-side or the end-user side? I tend to lean toward the developer-side to make end-user life easier. Good point. Thus, I much favor good end-user howtos (this is different to documentation). But I feel good design to be the higher goal. Both are needed. As of now, there is neither for some of things that nmh users request. And if there is information, it is scattered somewhere on the Net instead of in the nmh documentation. Does anyone still maintain the MH FAQ? --ewh ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
[Nmh-workers] Google SoC, part deux
So, I heard back from the NetBSD Board. In a nutshell: they turned me down. The reason they gave was that there are a limited number of slots available as part of the SoC, and if nmh got one of those slots assigned to NetBSD, that would take away from a SoC project that benefited NetBSD ... and since the NetBSD Project is intended to advance NetBSD ... well, it's not something they would want to dedicate resources toward. And I guess I can't argue with their reasoning. So, unless there is an umbrella organization we could get under ... and from looking at the 2009 list, I don't see any likely candidates, I think we have only one option available to us: go it ourselves. Now, I've thought about this, and ... I may regret this, but I'm willing to be the point man for the Google SoC effort. But I can't do it alone; I'll need a backup, and mentors for individual projects (assuming we get accepted). Let's talk about the money: last year the mentoring organization received $500 USD. What I would suggest is that it be split equally between all of the people involved in the administration of the SoC effort. Sounds fair? There has to be one person who receives the money (and has to fill out the tax paperwork); I'm willing to do that, and I guess everyone involved will just have to trust me that I'll give you the money at the end. Now, if someone _else_ wants to be the point man ... hey, now's your time to speak up. I'll gladly turn over the reins to someone else if they want it. --Ken ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [Nmh-workers] Re: should nmh be an MTA or an MUA?
If popularity is the goal, then my answer to this is a resolute NO. I guess I see a wide range of possibilities between popular and dead. MH has filled a niche outside the mass market of MUAs since its inception. What it does, it does well. What it doesn't, it doesn't well. That's not a bad thing. In fact, I don't see why that's even an issue. Here's my problem with that. The world isn't standing still. Let's put aside ideas like IMAP support ... right now nmh is behind the curve on basic functionality. Huge example - replying to a MIME message pretty much sucks. In fact, even the basic MIME support isn't that wonderful. Example: I received a message today that was a single text/plain part, but encoded in base64 (I am guessing because the character set is utf-8). Thankfully exmh dealt with it properly, but replying to that message sucks. Dealing with this message with show sucks. You might argue that sending a base64-encoded text/plain is unreasonable ... but it is a valid message according to the MIME standard, and nmh handles it poorly. So now we're in a situation where the way people use email is moving forward, and nmh is becoming less and less able to deal with modern messages. That means at some point, nmh will simply be useless to deal with the vast majority of messages that are out there. If your interest is to only exchange messages with other nmh users, then I guess you won't care ... but I would suggest that if nmh doesn't evolve, at some point there won't be any other nmh users. --Ken ___ Nmh-workers mailing list Nmh-workers@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
