Path: utzoo!telly!ziebmef!cks
From: cks@ziebmef.uucp (Chris Siebenmann)
Newsgroups: can.uucp
Subject: Re: size of smail
Message-ID: <1989Jan10.022127.15145@ziebmef.uucp>
Date: 10 Jan 89 07:21:21 GMT
References: <1989Jan2.001754.11708@ziebmef.uucp> <1989Jan2.222329.27995@lsuc.uucp> <1120@ncrcan.Toronto.NCR.COM> <433@aurora.AthabascaU.CA>
Reply-To: cks@ziebmef.UUCP (Chris Siebenmann)
Distribution: can
Organization: Ziebmef Public Access Unix, Toronto, Ontario
Lines: 43

In article <433@aurora.AthabascaU.CA> lyndon@auvax.UUCP (Lyndon Nerenberg) writes:
...
>I'm still waiting to hear what it is that's so big about smail that
>makes it not worthwhile running on smaller machines ...

 It seems to me that smail3.1 will either give me a lot of features I
have no use for (like SMTP delivery on a machine with only UUCP), or
has got a lot of overhead for the simple and probably most common
case.

 It is highly likely that the aims of the smail3.1 authors do not
include making a small effecient mailer for uucp-only systems (or
systems with uucp plus an internal network). I have no objection to
this; I just wish they would call their mailer something besides
smail, so as not to mislead and disappoint all the uucp sites which
are expecting something of roughly comparable size and functionality
to smail2.5 but with the bugs fixed.

 smail3.1 sounds far too much like an upgrade to smail2.5; by all
accounts, it isn't, so I wish they'd stop confusing people (heck, the
smail3.1 list occasionally gets the occasional bug-fix or problem
report for smail2.5, a pretty clear indication people are confused
about this).

>[ and yes, I'm still going to post the sizes, as soon as an unnamed
>  technician type around here gets me back on the ethernet :-(  ]

 I'm looking forward with great interest to finding out the sizes (if
you have a version of smail2.5 handy, compiling it and telling us the
comparative sizes would be handy).

 Oh why can't anyone build small single-purpose programs any more?

[Obligatory answer: because smail3.1 is solving a large and
intractable problem, not the small and simple one smail2.5 solves.
It's just not a problem that I have, so I don't feel I should pay the
overhead for it.]
[I'll get off my hobby-horse now, I think...]
-- 
	"Hey, thats's why Dad moved to Colorado. He sits Zen now. 
		Me, I like the mountains."
Chris Siebenmann		uunet!{utgpu!moore,attcan!telly}!ziebmef!cks
cks@ziebmef.UUCP	     or	.....!utgpu!{,ontmoh!,ncrcan!brambo!}cks