RE: DRAFT RFD - comp.mail.qmail - Comments Sought (Was: qmail advocacy questions)
On Wed, May 31, 2000 at 08:36:43AM -0400, Russell Nelson wrote:
I agree with you in general, Russ. The only benefit I can see to
comp.mail.qmail is that there is also a comp.mail.sendmail.
The impression I gain is that reception amidst vocal
qmail advocates is at best lukewarm. How many replied ?
4 or 5 on a list containing upwards of 800 list members.
Though I didn't comment, especially as I am not yet seasoned,
I want to state that I am in favor of comp.mail.qmail. I
intended my silence to be interpreted as implicit agreement
with the idea of forming the group; as it seemed that the RFD
would likely be presented to the news.groups, I didn't see
where my words would be particularly necessary.
Now, can I justify my position of wanting the newsgroup?
The primary arguments I found against the formation of
comp.mail.qmail are 1) The current situation is fine;
2) a newsgroup would take traffic away from the mailing
list 3) Usenet is Useless! (i.e. it used to be better than
mailing lists, now its not).
I don't personally see 1) as a real argument against the formation
of the newsgroup, unless it's coupled with 2). Yes, the current
situation is good, but it could be better.
2) is a slightly strange one. I'd actually like traffic on the
qmail list to go down, or more, stay where it is. Mailing lists
are good for small, relatively closed communities; ones that I
subscribe to include the excellent libwww-perl which is mainly
trafficked by the module owners, plus some newbie-q traffic.
Higher volume lists like the WWWAC list and Perl-Win-32-Web are
a pretty big mess.
3) Usenet needs updating. I've got some ideas on that, and anyone
who is interested in some bold ideas for shaking up the newsgroups
should drop me a line. However, I still think it's better than
mailing lists for a number of reasons, the first being threading.
Also, when traffic gets high, then newsgroups are clearly are
more rational option, as fewer copies of the messages are sent out.
Etc. etc.
These rejoinders offer some reasons for a newsgroup, but I want to
add that in my opinion, qmail is at the stage where a newsgroup is
appropriate. It's well-documented and tested, and I do expect it
to supplant sendmail over time. A newsgroup not only allows the
qmail community to grow gracefully, but it also serves as an excellent
advertisement for qmail. ("sendmail has its own newsgroup, but qmail
doesn't. Hmm, guess qmail isn't really ready/well supported/well
advocated.")
I hope there are some points here that seem to make sense.
I don't accept the "there's a comp.mail.sendmail so
yeh, there should be a comp.mail.qmail" argument, as I
think it is plainly flawed, and will be shot to death
on news.groups.
This 'thread' started in 1998, when I asked some simple
advocacy questions viz. who is using qmail ? ISPs etc.
I note that the www.qmail.org webmaster, later amended
some of the replies, and put them on the web page. Good. This
kind of information gives people useful insight.
I originally suggested firmly I would post the RFD formally
this week, or thereabouts. I'll re-phrase that as, I'll
"try again here in 15 months' time, to see if there is interest".
That's being prudent about things and qmail is a prudent MTA.
Meantime, some of you may be interested in the alt.*
newsgroup alt.comp.mail.qmail (newgrouped 27 Feb 2000).
If your ISP does not carry this group, and you'd like
access to it, one usually writes to [EMAIL PROTECTED],
or your usual support contact asking "please add ..."
I would also suggest a a href="news:... link on the website.
Thank you to those who commented publically and privately,
and corrected my typos. Feel free to ignore any more above !
Darren
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Re: DRAFT RFD - comp.mail.qmail - Comments Sought (Was: qmail advocacy questions)
Magnus Bodin [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Isn't the general shift nowadays (since 1994 and forward) from news to mailinglists just because of the big problem with spam-address-collectors on usenet? If that's the case, you're all already doomed; this mailing list has been gated to two or three different newsgroups for years now. I've noticed because my messages to it keep showing up in Deja. That's common for most large mailing lists. In my personal experience, Usenet is slightly more of a harvesting risk than large and well-known mailing lists but it isn't *that* significant. Pretty much everything pales in comparison to web harvesting now, actually. (And of late, I get a reasonable amount of Chinese spam and almost no other spam; I'm down to averaging around five pieces of spam a day and I do essentially no filtering. But .edu addresses seem to have a very different spam pattern than .com addresses.) I'm a huge fan of Usenet for a lot of things, and an advocate of Usenet, but it's also my experience that technical fora tend to start as either newsgroups or mailing lists and generally don't move well from one to another. You couldn't turn, say, comp.unix.programmer into a mailing list without losing a lot of the strong points of the group, and similarly I don't think this mailing list would convert to a newsgroup well. And I don't think there's enough qmail discussion to really warrant both this mailing list and a Big Eight newsgroup. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/
Re: DRAFT RFD - comp.mail.qmail - Comments Sought (Was: qmail advocacy questions)
Russ Allbery writes: Darren Wyn Rees [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Below, I've quoted a DRAFT RFD proposal for comp.mail.qmail. I'm not sure this is a good idea, mostly because I don't see the distinction between the newsgroup and this mailing list and I also don't expect the people using the mailing list to really want to move to a newsgroup. Without the core of people on this mailing list that know qmail very well and answer most of the questions, the newsgroup is unlikely to be all that useful, and I haven't heard much indication that those people would really prefer a newsgroup. I agree with you in general, Russ. The only benefit I can see to comp.mail.qmail is that there is also a comp.mail.sendmail. -- -russ nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://russnelson.com Crynwr sells support for free software | PGPok | "Ask not what your country 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | can force other people to Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | do for you..." -Perry M.
Re: DRAFT RFD - comp.mail.qmail - Comments Sought (Was: qmail advocacy questions)
On Wed, 31 May 2000, Russell Nelson wrote: Russ Allbery writes: Darren Wyn Rees [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Below, I've quoted a DRAFT RFD proposal for comp.mail.qmail. I'm not sure this is a good idea, mostly because I don't see the distinction between the newsgroup and this mailing list and I also don't expect the people using the mailing list to really want to move to a newsgroup. Without the core of people on this mailing list that know qmail very well and answer most of the questions, the newsgroup is unlikely to be all that useful, and I haven't heard much indication that those people would really prefer a newsgroup. I agree with you in general, Russ. The only benefit I can see to comp.mail.qmail is that there is also a comp.mail.sendmail. I seem to recall having this discussion 4 years ago and we decided at that point that comp.mail.qmail was not a good idea. :) Oh well, here we go again. - Timothy L. Mayo mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Senior Systems Administrator localconnect(sm) http://www.localconnect.net/ The National Business Network Inc. http://www.nb.net/ One Monroeville Center, Suite 850 Monroeville, PA 15146 (412) 810- Phone (412) 810-8886 Fax
Re: DRAFT RFD - comp.mail.qmail - Comments Sought
I agree with you in general, Russ. The only benefit I can see to comp.mail.qmail is that there is also a comp.mail.sendmail. I suppose it might work with a two-way gateway between the newsgroup and this list, and registration to post as it is now. I've been doing that for [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a while and it works reasonably well. But I do agree that other than the moderately greater visibility on usenet, there's not much benefit to be gained. In years past, the volume of traffic on a usenet group would swamp any plausible mail server. Now, with almost free computrons and fast mail software like qmail, that's much less of an issue. -- John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 [EMAIL PROTECTED], Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail
Re: DRAFT RFD - comp.mail.qmail - Comments Sought
I know this is not a qmail question... but I've been trying to get my hands on an news server address as I have none from where to see any newsgroups. Would someone please ... give me one :) if it is not much trouble Thanks a lot Guillermo "John R. Levine" wrote: I agree with you in general, Russ. The only benefit I can see to comp.mail.qmail is that there is also a comp.mail.sendmail. I suppose it might work with a two-way gateway between the newsgroup and this list, and registration to post as it is now. I've been doing that for [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a while and it works reasonably well. But I do agree that other than the moderately greater visibility on usenet, there's not much benefit to be gained. In years past, the volume of traffic on a usenet group would swamp any plausible mail server. Now, with almost free computrons and fast mail software like qmail, that's much less of an issue. -- John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 [EMAIL PROTECTED], Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail
Re: DRAFT RFD - comp.mail.qmail - Comments Sought
Guillermo Villasana Cardoza [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I know this is not a qmail question... but I've been trying to get my hands on an news server address as I have none from where to see any newsgroups. Would someone please ... give me one :) if it is not much trouble http://www.newsguy.com/ will let you purchase basic Usenet access using your own ISP for Internet access for some fairly low price (something like $30 a year). You can also use http://www.deja.com/ for free, but the interface sucks. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/
Re: DRAFT RFD - comp.mail.qmail - Comments Sought (Was: qmail advocacy questions)
Darren Wyn Rees [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Tue, May 30, 2000 at 10:18:39PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: I'm not sure this is a good idea, mostly because I don't see the distinction between the newsgroup and this mailing list ^^^ Funnily enough, I don't see much of a distinction between comp.mail.mutt and [EMAIL PROTECTED] Maybe it's a "usenet thing". What do you think ? Not reading those, I'm not sure. Usenet tends to attract more basic questions from beginners, at least at first, and mailing lists tend to have slightly more in-depth discussions, at least for most of the technical topics I'm aware of where I read both the newsgroups and the mailing list (comp.lang.perl.* vs. perl5-porters is a great example). If we were swamped by basic questions that might have better been dealt with in Usenet, I could see the point of that sort of distinction, but it really doesn't feel to me like that's currently the case here. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/
Re: DRAFT RFD - comp.mail.qmail - Comments Sought (Was: qmail advocacy questions)
On Tue, May 30, 2000 at 10:55:28PM +, Darren Wyn Rees wrote:
[snip]
-=-=-=-=-=-= THIS IS A DRAFT -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
NOTES : I prefer using lowercase 'q' in qmail. But for the sake
of grammatical correctness, in the RFD I've used 'Q'.
Even grammatical correctness would dictate a lowercase q, since the name of
the program in question has been devised with a lowercase q.
Please comment on what 'newsgroup line' you prefer. I prefer the
first one listed.
-8CUT-HERE---8-
From: Darren Wyn Rees [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RFD: comp.mail.qmail
To: Qmail Discussion List [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Newsgroups: news.groups.newgroups,news.groups,comp.mail.misc
Followup-To: news.groups
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
unmoderated group comp.mail.qmail
This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a
comp.mail.qmail. This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote
at this time. Procedural details are below.
Newsgroup line:
comp.mail.qmail {The Qmail MTA software.}
{Qmail mailer.}
{Discussion of the Qmail mailer.}
I'd pick this one, yes.
{Discussion of the Qmail MTA.}
RATIONALE: comp.mail.qmail
Qmail (http://www.qmail.org) is a secure mailer or MTA (mail transport
agent) developed by Daniel J. Bernstein since {1996}.
19960124 qmail 0.70, beta.
is what the changelog says. Don't know about anything before that.
Discussion on the Qmail project has been focussed in the Qmail list
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) which has received over {40,000} messages
since {1996/1997}.
Lowercase q's, IMnsHO, everywhere, _even_ at the start of sentences.
I can only find that the list switched to ezmlm in Feb 1997.
Currently there is no Qmail newsgroup and Qmail-related discussion
occurs on a number of other newsgroups eg. comp.mail.(sendmail|misc).
Perhaps mention the mailinglist here?
[snip]
Inappropriate posts will include :
* flaming
* spam
* binaries, attachments or other encoded date (eg. graphics, HTML)
With possible exclusion of small patches for problems that are discussed?
Small patches may be distributed here, but large files
should be placed on users' homepages or FTP site.
Ok :)
Looks nice, overally. Good plan, anyway :)
Greetz, Peter.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - Peter van Dijk [student:developer:madly in love]
Re: DRAFT RFD - comp.mail.qmail - Comments Sought (Was: qmail advocacy questions)
Darren Wyn Rees [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Below, I've quoted a DRAFT RFD proposal for comp.mail.qmail. I'm not sure this is a good idea, mostly because I don't see the distinction between the newsgroup and this mailing list and I also don't expect the people using the mailing list to really want to move to a newsgroup. Without the core of people on this mailing list that know qmail very well and answer most of the questions, the newsgroup is unlikely to be all that useful, and I haven't heard much indication that those people would really prefer a newsgroup. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/
Re: DRAFT RFD - comp.mail.qmail - Comments Sought (Was: qmail advocacy questions)
On Tue, May 30, 2000 at 10:18:39PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: Darren Wyn Rees [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Below, I've quoted a DRAFT RFD proposal for comp.mail.qmail. I'm not sure this is a good idea, mostly because I don't see the distinction between the newsgroup and this mailing list and I also don't expect the people using the mailing list to really want to move to a newsgroup. Without the core of people on this mailing list that know qmail very well and answer most of the questions, the newsgroup is unlikely to be all that useful, and I haven't heard much indication that those people would really prefer a newsgroup. That is true. I currently do not read news, and also do not know when I will be reading news again. What value will it add besides the mailinglist? Greetz, Peter. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Peter van Dijk [student:developer:madly in love]
Re: DRAFT RFD - comp.mail.qmail - Comments Sought (Was: qmail advocacy questions)
On Wed, May 31, 2000 at 07:33:32AM +0200, Peter van Dijk wrote: That is true. I currently do not read news, and also do not know when I will be reading news again. What value will it add besides the mailinglist? You can get a lot of nice mail from people selling things to you ;-) I personally will never post to that newsgroup with my real mail address. I'll keep using the mailinglists. Isn't the general shift nowadays (since 1994 and forward) from news to mailinglists just because of the big problem with spam-address-collectors on usenet? /magnus -- http://x42.com/
