Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Postfix's Wietse Venema Interviewed

Posted by timothy on from the better-than-the-usps dept.

wrochal points to Brazilian site Linux IT's interview with Postfix creator Wietse Venema, writing "This interview approaches his private life, projects and the future of postfix and other MTAs."

2 of 12 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Most evolved MTA by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have had the "privilege" of working with Sendmail. It is indeed a nightmare to work with especially for newcomers.

    However, like MySQL vs PostGRE, even though PostGRE is by far the best DB system out there (at least in my opinion), people are reluctant to change from using MySQL, even with licensing issues. This is because the system works and they feel no need, no pressure to change the status quo, in case things fail. This "if it aint broke, don't fix it" attitude will ensure that Sendmail, even with all its complexities, will be a, if not the, major player in the MTA market.

    Software inertia exists until and unless there is a major reason to shift positions. IE is losing ground because of public notification of its fallacies. There is a shift to .NET and Java, even though C and C++ are still extremely relevant, and this is due to the features offered by the two languages, for both developers and users.

    Postfix may yet be the MTA of choice across *nix systems, but if and only if there is a force driving this change.

  2. From a software developers point of view... by andawyr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...I would highly recommend taking some time and reading the postfix code, especially if you're considering constructing software using a client-server model. The code is very clean, well written, and quite easy to understand.

    The code is very object-oriented, even tho it was written in 'C'. The process framework taught me a *lot* about how you develop multi-process applications - combined with APUE (Richard Stevens' book(s)) Postfix can be a great learning tool.

    Regarding the MTA itself, I installed it about 4 years ago, and except for minor patch upgrades every now and then, I have had no issues with Postfix at all. Granted, I'm not dumping a lot of mail into it, but still - it's quite simple to configure, and you can even understand the configuration file, unlike Sendmail....