On Thu, 13 Oct 2011 at 10:17:38 +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote: > * Josh Triplett <j...@joshtriplett.org> [111013 05:51]: > > Users can easily install an MTA; why do they need one *by default* on > > every Debian system they install? > > Because the system is not in a useful state without. If you want to > cripple your system, just deinstall it.
(TL;DR: I agree with Josh.) My parents' Debian systems (a laptop and a desktop) are perfectly useful without a local MTA - they use Thunderbird^WIcedove for email via IMAP and authenticated SMTP. In some ways, this configuration is better than a local MTA with a smarthost - the SMTP authentication authenticates the user, not the machine (whereas a local MTA would have to either use a particular person's credentials, or have credentials for a shared account named after the machine, able to send but not receive mail). For that matter, my mobile phone is loosely Debian-based (an N900 with Maemo) and has no use for a MTA at all :-) I realise there's no correct answer for everyone, but the sort of people who need an MTA can easily install one (or get one installed via dependencies), whereas the sort of people who don't need an MTA often don't know that they don't need one, don't know that they have one, don't know how to get rid of it, and don't know how to read any messages that it might have left for them. It seems to me that if we do need an MTA in standard it's for cron jobs and similar system notifications, where Exim is overkill - esmtp-run or dma would be quite sufficient. (I thought we also had an MTA that didn't speak SMTP at all, and only delivered addresses without "@" locally via an MDA, but I can't see such a thing in aptitude - either I'm misremembering, or it got removed.) I'm not really convinced of the usefulness of a local mail spool to notify non-server users about anything, though - a typical user of Icedove, KMail, Evolution or whatever will never see things that get left in /var/spool/mail. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20111013113949.gb4...@reptile.pseudorandom.co.uk
