On Sat, 2005-04-30 at 11:05, JC Dill wrote:
I personally don't see it as being a significant endorsement. AIUI, it's a patch that allows 2 software programs to work well together.
Mailman already provides patches or directions to make mailman work well with qmail and postfix, but I don't believe this constitutes an "endorsement" of qmail and/or postfix.
In a sense it does though, because we're making some kind of promise to keep those things working. Now, the reality is that without Your help, there's no way I could keep those promises. I know Mailman works with Postfix because that's what I use, but I certainly don't have the time or resources to test under all possible configurations. I still think that means that the Mailman community as a whole is endorsing the support of those external mail servers.
A simple patch philosophy that will address this and future patches: If the patch is incorporated into the main mailman build then the default state should be "off" so that the listmaster has to proactively turn the feature "on" for their mailman list server.
+1
If the patch remains as an add-on feature that has to be downloaded separately from the main build, then the default state could be "on" (since downloading the patch separately would be a clear indication that the listmaster desired to implement this feature on their mailman list server).
-1. Pro-actively enabling a feature shouldn't be that much more work than downloading it and getting it integrated.
IMHO, etc. Caveat: I'm not a developer so those of you who actually write code and build/install the software (I just run it after someone else installed it for me :-) have much more say on this than I do. So if you hate my idea, speak up!
Don't underestimate yourself JC! You're what we developers like to call "A User", and while your type can be pesky at times <wink>, without you we're just hacking in the wind (he says, refraining from a more graphic description :). Users who help contribute to the design, functionality, and usability of Mailman -- as you do -- are always welcome on this list!
-Barry