[plug] This Mailing list

[Leon Brooks]

Christian wrote:
> Matt Kemner wrote:
>> I think it boils down the the fact that sendmail is optimised for
>> "normal" email patterns (ie one recipient per message) which is
>> why it may not be as fast handling large mailing lists as QMail
>> might be, which I'm told is optimised for large numbers of
>> recipients per message. That doesn't mean "sendmail is a bad MTA"
>> and "QMail is a good MTA" It means they each suit their purpose.

> I largely agree with this but I've heard so many different sendmail
> problems recounted so many times that, while it's not necessarily a
> "bad" MTA, I suspect there are usually better options.  People complain
> about sendmail for being "bloated", difficult to configure, slow,
> resource-hogging, and insecure.  The only real advantage I've heard is
> that it is very flexible/powerful.  Calling it "bad" outright would
> probably be an overstatement but I think it's worth considering and
> evaluation the alternatives.

You're both wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong! (-: There, that feels better!
:-)

Matt in that sendmail is crufty because it is ancient; it knows _many_
tricks as a consequence of the ancientness as well: it is the Biblical
"hoary head of age", full of wisdom, among mail agents.

For this reason, it makes a poor athlete, it isn't all that "hip" with
modern languages and it's not too good in a fight. On the other hand, it
runs on absolutely anything and will communicate with some pretty
bizarre mail agents using arcane methods that PostFix wouldn't even know
from nightmares, let alone handle.

Christian, please note: horses for courses. Sendmail is not a bad mail
agent in any sense. The closest you could honestly hint in the direction
of "bad" would be "nearing retirement age" or "would probably benefit
from rewriting." You young whipper-snappers have no respect for
experience: bow before the ancient knowledge! (-:

-- 
Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.
If at first you don't succeed, try a shorter bungee. When in trouble,
when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. The two great secrets
of success are: don't tell anyone everything that you know.