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[Frank Wiles]

On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 14:05:02 -0500
Garrett Goebel <garrett at scriptpro.com> wrote:

> Gerald Combs wrote:
> > On Thu, 31 Jul 2003, Frank Wiles wrote:
> > > 
> > > Also, the days when Sendmail was a big security risk are 
> > > pretty much gone.  Yes I will admit it has had a checkered
> > > past, but honestly how many Sendmail specific security
> > > holes have there been in the last year? 
> > 
> > According to cve.mitre.org, there have been several:
> > 
> >   http://www.cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=sendmail
> > 
> 
> And how many in qmail? Zero.
> 
> While his own license is fairly open (more open than Netscape's was
> when RedHat was distributing its binaries)... its pretty obvious DJB
> has something against gnu and open source licenses. I wonder what it
> is? Loss of control over _his_ code? Does anyone know of anything he's
> written directly on this point?
> 
> Compile from source distributions like Gentoo are practially
> unrestricted by DJB's licensing terms. He does explicitly allow you to
> download and compile his source. And makes explicit your rights to do
> whatever you want with it thereafter
> (http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html). As far as I've read, he just won't
> allow modified binaries.
> 
> It just seems kind of sad that you wind up with multiple series of
> patches against qmail... like some throw-back to minix. That will take
> you only so far.
>

  I tire of this argument quickly, so this will probably be my last 
  contribution to this thread. 

  Yes you are right qmail has had zero.  Personally, I do not see
  that as a reason to switch.
  
  Yes the ability to distributed modified binaries is a small one, 
  but like I said I don't like his license because it is not Open
  Source. 

  Also, while it is true they haven't had a security vulnerability, 
  I have seen no other feature or reason why I would want to switch
  to qmail. Like anything else it's just opinion.  Much like I see
  very little need for a language like Java (no flame wars please), 
  warning labels on hot coffee, telemarketers, etc. 

  Back to the original question of reasons to use Sendmail over other
  alternatives, I forgot one.  Milter.  Milter is a wonderful way to 
  modify/spam filter/virus scan messages as they are being accepted
  by the MTA. The fact that milter exists would keep me with Sendmail
  if nothing else. 

 ---------------------------------
   Frank Wiles <frank at wiles.org>
   http://frank.wiles.org
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