Re: Inclusion of sendmail and patch

----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Taggart" <[email protected]>
To: "Lee W" <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 10:43 PM
Subject: Re: [lsb-discuss] Inclusion of sendmail and patch


>
>
> The spec says that a command called sendmail should exist that obeys the
> options list in the spec,
>
>
http://www.linuxbase.org/spec/refspecs/LSB_1.3.0/gLSB/gLSB/baselib-sendmail-
> 1.html
>
> and is available for applications that want to be able to send mail. This
> doesn't necessarily mean that *the* Sendmail(tm) is there and is open to
> the world. Most MTAs provide a command "sendmail" that behaves like
> Sendmail(tm). It is useful for LSB developers to be able to have their
> applications send mail, without having to deliver their own MTA.
>
<snip>
> > Secondly, what is the reasoning behind including patch as a core =
> > utility?
> > I will fully admit to not having much knowledge on this point, but is it
=
> > not primarily a tool used in development, such as applying updates to =
> > source code prior to recompilation (although I believe it can be used to
=
> > modify script files as well)?
>
> It's a tool for delivering updates to files, which developers might need
to
> do on a runtime system. There may be additional justification which I'm
not
> aware of.
>
> Does this help?
>

Matt,

Thanks for your reply.

What you have said does help me to rethink my original impressions, although
I am still concerned with including an entire sendmail-like (whether it be
qmail,postfix, exim or sendmail tm) server onto every machine.  One of the
goals for my distro is that of one suitable as a minimal system for use as a
corporate desktop  (similair to the likes of NT Workstation or Windows 2000
Pro, sorry for the Microsoft comparison), do we need effectively a mail
server on every one of the workstations?

I understand that it is outside of the remit of the LSB and the FHS but
perhaps someone needs to create either a script or binary that emulates the
sendmail-interface but only delivers mail locally to /var/spool/mail (I
think that is where the FHS suggests) or forwards it onto a smarthost, "no
more no less".  Once I know more about it I would be willing to write such
as script myself, if yourself and others feel it would still comply with the
LSB.

Thanks again.

Lee