[SGVLUG] I can't send email (but now I can).

[David Lawyer]

On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 12:43:27PM -0700, Dustin Laurence wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 07, 2006 at 08:33:55PM -0700, David Lawyer wrote:
> 
> > processes/stores what fetchmail gets.  Exim works as a client as well
> > as a server.

I was thinking about this from the README.Debian for exim4:

2.2.1. Exim 4 as TLS/SSL client
2.3.1. Using exim as SMTP-AUTH client

> No.  Please to not redefine "client" to mean something eccentric.  MTAs
> can talk to each other and transfer mail from one to another, but the
> convention is that "client" refers to the program that provides the
> interface the end-user manipulates (you could try to define a client
> mode for one MTA receiving mail from another, but this doesn't make the
> MTA a client and it would probably only confuse things).  Evolution,
> mutt, Thunderbird, and so on are mail clients (or mail user agents).
> Procmail is an MDA (mail delivery agent).  Exim is a mail transport
> agent.

> > I'm not saying that most desktops should use exim-mutt-fetchmail but
> > it's for the desktop nitch on old computers that cost almost nothing
> > today.
> 
> No, it is for people who can manage server software.  Someone without
> such skills is SOL no matter what computer they have and nobody is going
> to try to make a MTA work for them.  Improve MUAs, perhaps.

Not exactly.  The configuration program should be better and set up
exim, etc. better.  And the documentation needs improvement.  Then not too
much skill would be needed.  And a lot of people who can't afford to
buy newer computers have the needed skills for this if only the
documentation and configuration programs were better.  With the US
having a -1.6% savings rate and an imbalance of trade where the amount
of imports is approaching double that of exports, a lot of people that
do buy computers in the US really can't afford them, even if they
don't use credit cards to pay for them (and credit-card debt is very
high).  So I believe there is a huge, but mostly unrealized, market
for installing Linux on old computers to be used as desktops, both in
the US and elsewhere.

			David Lawyer