On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 13:58:08 +0200, Jeremiah Foster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >On Sep 20, 2005, at 5:37 PM, Marc Haber wrote: >> On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:53:29 -0400, Marc Sherman >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> 2) The Debian package maintainers have customized and modified the >>> Exim >>> config mechanisms quite aggressively, in an effort to handhold those >>> same clueless newbies. > >So heartwarming to read in black-and-white the deep respect developers >have for users.
As far as I know, Marc Sherman is neither affiliated with exim nor with Debian development. >>> This has the effect of steepening the learning curve quite drastically >>> for people who are just beginning to leave clueless newbie territory. >> >> All people need is to read the docs. They don't. > >This is partly true. The debian documentation is not centrally located, >obtuse, and has tangential relevance to the documentation on the main >exim web site. The central location for documentation on Debian (and on every FHS-compliant Unix System) is /usr/share/doc, and thus /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/README.Debian should be impossible to miss. The README file references a lot of other documentation which is either in the doc directory, or in a manpage, or in the configuration itself. >A smaller spec file is a more realistic option Exim's specification is, like, a specification. It exactly describes how exim behaves and is an excellent piece of work - as exim itself is. What Exim is indeed lacking is freely available user-level documentation in tutorial style, with Philip's Book probably being closest approximation. >as is >greater participation by the community to maintain wikis etc. I have >followed Marc's suggestion to create a document informing people of >where documentation lives. My preliminary document is here - >http://devmodul.com/documentation/exim/exim4_debian_documentation.shtml >Please note this is a work in progress. Basically looks like a standards-compliant 404. >Clue is an unfortunate term. It is condescending and perjorative. The >issue really is how easy is it to install and run and how clear is the >documentation. To state that all failures running exim4 are due to the >"clueless newbies" is specious and indicative of the willful disregard >free software porgrammers in general have for users. It is like the willful disregards that most users have for prominently visible documentation. >No wonder tools >like Ubuntu are so popular, the world wants to use secure, good >software but installing debian is nearly impossible for many people. >This is not a fault of the users, this is a fault of the developers. Which MTA does Ubuntu use by default, and from where was the packaging pulled? >>> 3) Debian's incredibly long stable release cycles mean that there are >>> very significant periods of time where Debian will be shipping as >>> "stable" a very outdated (and possibly buggy) version of Exim. This >>> is >>> exacerbated by the fact that the actual "make release here" point is >>> chosen by Debian's release managers without much real warning (or >>> rather, too much real warning, leading to a wolf-crying situation), >>> and >>> as a result, Debian will often ship as stable a relatively immature >>> x.x0 >>> or x.x1 release. >> >How can debian ship both an "outdated" and "immature" release under >stable? This seems a contradiction. Unfortunately, it isn't. It is perfectly possible to continue shipping an immature release for a long time. Thankfully, _that_ hasn't happened to Debian's exim, most probably because immature releases do not happen very often with Exim. Thanks again, guys. Greetings Marc -- -------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! ----- Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom " | http://www.zugschlus.de/ Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 621 72739834 -- ## List details at http://www.exim.org/mailman/listinfo/exim-users ## Exim details at http://www.exim.org/ ## Please use the Wiki with this list - http://www.exim.org/eximwiki/
