[Clamav-users] Problem with internal logger

[Anthony Peacock]

Hi Julian,

Julian Field wrote:
> On 2 Jun 2006, at 16:50, Anthony Peacock wrote:
>> I really am trying not to sound like a grumpy old man here, but I do 
>> feel that running an internet connected mail server is something that 
>> should be done by a person with a basic understanding of what is going 
>> on.
> 
> This is one of the few subjects which will get me ranting. So don't get 
> me started :-)

Damn!  I was trying to pick my words carefully so I didn't hit your rant 
buttons :-)

Don't get me wrong, I agree with your general view point.  And I think 
that the work you have done to make it easy for someone to install a 
secure mail server is to be applauded.

I think my position is only slightly different from yours.  Where we 
appear to differ is about 'exposing' the complexity.  As well as 
agreeing with your position below I think we have a duty to educate. 
Yes we all had to start somewhere, and we have all made mistakes along 
the way, I was very lucky to work with some very bright and experienced 
people in the early days of my career who helped my education a lot.

I think that hiding the complexity too much can be a disservice to some 
people as they could easily think that there is no more to understand.

My initial comments at the start of this thread where purely that I 
thought making someone look in the config file before running the system 
was a good thing, as it forced them to at least understand that there 
was a config file there.

Anyway, I don't want to look like I am opposing your view, when I think 
we are actually only debating a small detail.




> 
> <sermon>
> My position is that we all have to start learning somewhere. We also 
> have a duty to get more people running software that protects themselves 
> and everyone else from the hazards of spam, viruses, etc. I also feel 
> strongly that we should encourage newbies to stick with it, by producing 
> software that is as easy as possible to get going as possible. Most 
> newcomers to Unix/Linux/whatever are very wary as they are on new 
> ground, and have the assumption that it is all so much harder than Windows.
> 
> Try getting a company to install their very first Unix box when all they 
> have ever used is Windows. There is good money to be made here doing 
> system management for them as they admit that they don't know what they 
> are doing and everything is going to break leaving their company with no 
> electronic communication at all. Many companies who suffer a complete 
> failure of their email system for any length of time do not recover. 
> This stuff costs people real money, their jobs, everything. If we don't 
> put lots of effort into making their life as easy as possible, they will 
> never even start learning: they will stick with what they are used to.
> 
> Why do you think so many people have used Microsoft's SQL Server instead 
> of DB2 or Oracle for small company systems? It's partly because you can 
> put the CD in the drive, click on the setup icon and end up with a 
> working database system. The last time I used DB2 or Oracle, there were 
> fundamental bugs in their install scripts that meant that it all just 
> broke outside of the USA. I know which one I would go for: the one that 
> works out of the box.
> </sermon>
> 
> --Julian Field
> www.MailScanner.info
> Buy the MailScanner book at www.MailScanner.info/store
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-- 
Anthony Peacock
CHIME, Royal Free & University College Medical School
WWW:    http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk/~rmhiajp/
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that
English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow
words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways
to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new
vocabulary."  -- James D. Nicoll