Re: Questions regarding lsb-invalid-mta

Some background on lsb-invalid-mta:

This package came out of discussions between some Ubuntu developers and 
some LSB developers (including me).  Basically, Ubuntu wanted to be able 
to ship systems that did not include a MTA, and saw the MTA requirement 
in the LSB as not useful.  We disagreed (based on feedback from software 
developers).

The lsb-invalid-mta was the closest we could get to a compromise. 
Having the sendmail binary just disappear could cause scripts expecting 
it to fail in unexpected ways.  OTOH, the sendmail binary has documented 
error settings, and returning an error is a valid response.

It would seem that the package made its way into Debian in our effort to 
harmonize the Debian and Ubuntu LSB packages.

I agree with you that the proper thing to do here is to provide a proper 
MTA when installing the "lsb" package.  Perhaps we should not build 
"lsb-invalid-mta" in Debian as part of the "lsb" package, while perhaps 
allowing it to be built on Ubuntu.