F20 - Unintended consequences of no default MTA - How best to fix

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 01/05/2014 11:50 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
>
> On Jan 5, 2014, at 2:31 AM, Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de> wrote:
>>>
>> No. IMO, this is just a defect of RH/Fedora based and other Linux distros. They have not been able to provide a proper, out-of-the-box configuration.
>>
>> If they had done so, everybody was using it.
>
> So this long running defect is just *itching* to be fixed so badly that the decision to drop installing an MTA by default was about to happen on the precipice of a proper OOB configuration implementation being ready for wide spread deployment?
>
>>
>> Apples and oranges. Correct, most of these OSes do not support this feature, primarily because these OSes have been designed as single-seat/single-users OSes and did not take multi-user/network-wide system-management into account.
>
> Windows has been designed for multi-user for over a decade, its origin as single user isn't relevant.
Win is multi-user in the sense as it allows more than one-login.

The actual difference to Linux is: Linux basically is a server OS, which 
also can be deployed as a desktop and can also be deployed as a 
single-user/single-seat OS.

With Win, the situation is converse: It once was is a single-user 
desktop client-OS, which meanwhile allows some limited 
"multi-user/server" uses.

>>> Restricting the context to just Fedora, by default it is a desktop OS with a GUI.
>> That's what some people around here want to make it.
>
> Make it? It's been this way for what a decade?
Correct, Fedora has not be been this way and except that some people do 
not seem to take non-single-user/single-seat configurations into account 
in Fedora-development, Fedora fortunately still isn't.

>> However this is *not* what Linux is, nor is it what I want it to be.
>
> And this is what's so great about F/OSS, you get to yum install <mta> or whatever you want to make it whatever you want.
Right, you've got it! Linux (comprising Fedora) is a "construction kit", 
and is it *not* a restricted to be used as mere "Desktop OS".
Deploying it as a desktop is just a subset of possible use-cases.

In this light, replacing "mail" as notification mechanism is a 
substantial functional regression in generality of deployment.

Ralf