Re: CVS commit: basesrc/etc

[kpneal%pobox.com@localhost]

On Sat, Oct 19, 2002 at 06:44:52PM -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> 
> Charlie Allom <charlie%rubberduck.com@localhost> writes:
> > I would thouroughly disagree!
> > 
> > "what is a mail wrapper?"
> > 
> > "what does mailer.conf do for me?"
> > 
> > "what is sendmail, exactly?" for that matter
> > 
> > I remember these questions from some time ago - _document_ it for the
> > clueless or leave it as a working system IMO. I would call a
> > non-local-delivering OS on install a broken one.
> 
> It is *all* documented. man mailer.conf. man sendmail. man mailwrapper.

And is there a "start here" document anywhere? Is there a "So, you
just installed NetBSD. Awesome. Now fix email:" document anywhere?

Expecting my Mom or my brother to find the right man pages and read
them is tantamount to expecting them to stick with MS-Windows. Fer
cryin' out loud, my Mom has a cable modem and my brother set up her
email for her. Now she gets email through Yahoo -- not her ISP! Why
didn't he set her up with her ISP? Because that would have been harder.

Don't get me wrong, neither one of them is a dummy. Neither one of them
is a computer scientist/engineer, either. Plus, I think my time is better
spent getting them to vote against Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC), especially
since Coble is working to do a lot more damage than Yahoo will ever do.

Look, imagine the freshman at college who wants to run Unix on his
computer.  A Linux install handles email just fine, FreeBSD and I guess
OpenBSD would as well. Do we want that student to install NetBSD and have
it be broken right out of the box? "NetBSD sucks! It can't even do email
right!"

Imagine a business trying out different systems for use internally.
Do we really want to create work for them just so they can use NetBSD
similarly to how they would use any other Unix? What are they going to
do? Realistically, broken email would be a strike against NetBSD. 

C'mon. 

A working system is better than a broken system with documentation.
-- 
Kevin P. Neal                                http://www.pobox.com/~kpn/

"Nonbelievers found it difficult to defend their position in \ 
    the presense of a working computer." -- a DEC Jensen paper