Configuration issues

[David Lee]

Several recent threads have concerned issues of install-time configuration
of MailScanner.

This email starts as various disparate items, but they come together at
the end.


CPAN (1)
~~~~~~~~

In principle, using CPAN would seem to be a Good Thing for many people.
(It is certainly my preferred way of working.)  But there have been
niggles such as a recent thread about "Make::"(?) and the fact that
MIME-tools seems to need additional patches.

MIME-tools:  Given that these patches are so vital, would it not be
possible, Julian, to get these patches rolled into MIME-tools?  And if
there is some awkward political problem there about its maintenance, could
you (or perhaps we, the MailScanner community) fork another project from
that (licensing permitting)?  A good, clean, well-maintained, CPAN-based
module would be most helpful.



CPAN(2)
~~~~~~~

Many CPAN modules that have other modules as pre-requisites can themselves
detect this and offer to download/install those modules.  Is there some
way that the build/install of MailScanner could itself do this?

[ Blue sky: could parts of MailScanner itself become CPAN packages?? ]


RPM-analogous items: (e.g. Solaris pkg):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Is there any mileage in producing, in addition to Redhat RPMs, the
equivalents for Solaris pkg and other packaging systems?  Note that I'm
NOT asking Julian actually to do this: read on...



autoconf/automake
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Much of the above would require adjustment to the build-time side of
MailScanner.  It is now using autoconf behind the scenes.  (Indeed, I
recall submitting quite a lot of autoconf sketches to you or Nick some
months ago: was it any use?).  Please could you include the autotools
stuff (configure.in, configure, Makefile.am etc.)  with the distribution
(analogous to the way GNU projects, samba, linux-ha etc. do)?

Including this would help us to try implementing some of these ideas
and submitting them back to you.



Implicit in all the above, of course, is gratitude for a great product.

Any thoughts?


--

:  David Lee                                I.T. Service          :
:  Systems Programmer                       Computer Centre       :
:                                           University of Durham  :
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