docs/diploma: thesis/tex/1-Introduction.tex comparison

comparison thesis/tex/1-Introduction.tex @ 284:591217f50f69

rework on why masqmail is worthy

author	meillo@marmaro.de
date	Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:45:13 +0100
parents	003410b64739
children	980eb42256ff

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 \section{The \masqmail\ project}
 \label{sec:masqmail}
 The \masqmail\ project was by \person{Oliver Kurth} in 1999. His aim was to create a small \MTA\ that is especially focused on computers with dial-up Internet connections. Throughout the next four years, he worked steadily on it, releasing new versions every few weeks. In total it were 53 releases, which is in average a new version every 20 days.
-This thesis bases on the latest release of \masqmail---version 0.2.21 from November 2005. It was released after a 28 month gap. The source code of 0.2.21 is the same as of 0.2.20, only build documents were modified. The release tarball can be retrieved from the \debian\ package pool\footnote{The \NAME{URL} is: \url{http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/masqmail/masqmail\_0.2.21.orig.tar.gz}\,.} \citeweb{debian:packages}. Probably was only put into public in the \debian\ pool because \masqmail's homepage \citeweb{masqmail:homepage2} does not include it.
+This thesis bases on the latest release of \masqmail---version 0.2.21 from November 2005. It was released after a 28 month gap. The source code of 0.2.21 is the same as of 0.2.20, only build documents were modified. The release tarball can be retrieved from the \debian\ package pool\footnote{The \NAME{URL} is: \url{http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/masqmail/masqmail\_0.2.21.orig.tar.gz}\,.} \citeweb{packages.debian}. Probably was only put into public in the \debian\ pool because \masqmail's homepage \citeweb{masqmail:homepage2} does not include it.
 \masqmail\ is covered by the \name{General Public License} (short: \GPL), which qualifies it as \freesw.
 \person{Kurth} abandonned \masqmail\ after 2005, and no one addopted the project since then. Thus, the author of this thesis decided to take responsibility for \masqmail\ now. He received \person{Kurth}'s permission to do so.
 First of all, \masqmail\ is better suited for its target field of operation (multiple non-permanent online connections) than every other \MTA. Especially is such usage easy to set up because \masqmail\ was designed for that.
 Additionally does \masqmail\ make it easy to run an \MTA\ on workstations or notebooks. There is no need to do complex configuration or to be a mail server expert. Only a handful of options need to be set; the hostname, the local networks, and one route for relaying are sufficient in most times. %fixme: is that true?
+Probably users say it best. In this case \person{Derek Broughton}:
+\begin{quote}
+No kidding. The whole point is that you \_have\_ to have an \MTA\ and you don't
+want to configure Postfix/Exim/Sendmail/Qmail (almost all of which I've
+actually done).
+I now use masqmail - it's really simple, my configuration is all in debconf,
+it's supported by whereami, and it's really simple :-)
+I'm sure you can make any \MTA\ behave nicely when offline, but it was a chore
+with all of them.
+\hfill\citeweb[post~\#8]{ubuntuforums:simple-mailer}
+\end{quote}
 Not to forget is \masqmail's size. It is much smaller than full-blown \MTA{}s like \sendmail, \postfix, or \exim, and still smaller than \qmail. (See section \ref{sec:mta-comparison} for details.) This makes \masqmail\ a good choice for workstations or even embedded computers.
+Again words of a user who chose \masqmail\ as \MTA\ on his old laptop with a 75 megahertz processor and eight megabytes of \NAME{RAM}:
-Although development on \masqmail\ stopped in 2003 it still has its users. Having users is alone reason enough for futher development and maintenance. Especially if the software covers a niche, and especially if requirements for such software in general change.
+\begin{quote}
+Masqmail appears to be a great sendmail replacement in this case. It's small and is built to support sending mail ``off-line'', and to connecting to the \SMTP\ servers of several \NAME{ISP}s.
-It is difficult to get numbers about users of Free Software, because no one needs to tell anyone when he uses some software. \debian's \name{popcon} statistics \citeweb{debian:popcon} are a try to provided numbers. The statistics report 61 \masqmail\ installations, in January 2009. If it is assumed that two third of all \debian\ users report their installed software, there would be in total around 90 \masqmail\ installations in \debian. As \masqmail\ is also distributed with \name{Ubuntu} and FIXME %fixme
+\hfill\citeweb{stosberg:low-mem-laptop}
-, the number is incremented by the guessed number of further 30 systems with \masqmail\ on it. Including an additional amount of 20 installations on operating systems that do not ship \masqmail\ makes about 140 \masqmail\ installations in total. Of course one person may have \masqmail\ installed on more than one computer, but a total of 100 different users seems to be a good guess.
+\end{quote}
-Software that is used should be developed and maintained.
+Although development on \masqmail\ stopped in 2003 it still has its users. Having users is alone reason enough for futher development and maintenance. This applies especially if the software covers a niche and if requirements for such software in general change. Both matches in \masqmail's case.
+It is difficult to get numbers about users of Free Software, because no one needs to tell anyone when he uses some software. \debian's \name{popcon} statistics \citeweb{popcon.debian} are a try to provided numbers. The statistics report 60 \masqmail\ installations of which 49 are in active use, for January 2009. If it is assumed that two third of all \debian\ users report their installed software, there would be in total around 75 active \masqmail\ installations in \debian. \name{Ubuntu} which also does \name{popcon} statistics \citeweb{popcon.ubuntu}, counts 82 installations with 13 active ones. If here also two third of all systems submit their data, 20 active installations can be added. Including an additional amount of 20 installations on other \unix\ operating systems makes about 115 \masqmail\ installations in total. Of course one person may have \masqmail\ installed on more than one computer, but a total of 90 different users seems to be realistic.
+The increasing number of systems using \masqmail, as it is shown on the \name{popcon} graph \citeweb{popcon.debian:masqmail}, seems to be impressive in the beginning as \masqmail\ was not developed during that time. But it might come from the increasing popularity of \name{popcon} over the time.
+One thing became a fact now: \masqmail\ has users. And software that is used should be developed and maintained.
 % alternative: http://anfi.homeunix.org/sendmail/dialup10.html
 %<< hikernet >>
-%<< explain why masqmail is old and why it is interesting/important however! >>
-%<< why is it worth to revive masqmail? >>

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