
OpenBSD Develops Its Own SMTP Server - boundlessdreamz
http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20081112084647
======
patrickg-zill
Even though Theo de Raadt is often abrasive, you have to give him credit for
making "do it right" cool enough to attract others to his security-first
perspective. OpenBSD, OpenSSH (used now in most Linux distros), OpenBGP
(complex routing), PF, etc. are all pretty excellent pieces of software.

~~~
wglb
Who better to make a secure os than a cranky, nearly paranoid Canadian? I
can't think of anyone.

I will not use anything else for my internet-facing boxes.

------
dschobel
love this line: _It pissed me off enough that I grabbed my laptop and a copy
of rfc2821 with me to the pub_

I love the open-source developer mentality.

~~~
kree10
Yes, I think it's worked out pretty well this way.

Would OpenSSH, pf, git, xorg, most "djbware", Samba, the *BSDs, or the entire
GNU project exist if we didn't first have badly licensed software, badly
designed software, real or imagined personal slights on mailing lists, etc.?

~~~
judofyr
But instead of "OpenSSH, pf, git, xorg, most "djbware", Samba, the *BSDs, or
the entire GNU project" we would have well licensed and well designed
software, etc, while something else would have been aweful and people would
spend time solving that problem...

~~~
aaronblohowiak
The systems that GNU resembles were poorly licensed. How do you figure that
without GNU, we would have had a better replacement in their stead (what
precedents do you have for your view?)

~~~
judofyr
Oh, I just don't think that we can say that the bad software has been a good
thing. Yes, they've made some creative minds produce some really good
software, but I still think it would have been better if the first software
was awesome right from the start.

After all, the creative minds would still search for unsolved problems…

------
tvon
SMTP strikes me as one of those things where complying with the spec is
probably relatively trivial, but accommodating existing, broken software
requires significant investment.

~~~
skwiddor
<http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/awk/smtpd.awk> is one I did in a couple of
hours, and although it dealt with 1,000s of emails in its time, I wouldn't put
a price ticket on it!

------
sfk
Now that qmail is public domain, surely this would be an easier option.

~~~
tmoertel
I was thinking the same thing. I also wonder why more Linux distros do not
include qmail. Other than having a few anachronisms, which can quickly be
brought up to modern times, it's a fast, secure, time-tested, and completely
respectable mail system.

~~~
neilc
Given that Postfix and Exim have much friendlier upstream developers (qmail
barely has a maintainer), I don't think it's a surprise that qmail is losing
popularity.

------
c00p3r
postfix was designed by one (that is very important) talented engineer - there
is an excellent well-balanced architecture behind it along with professional
implementation. It is much better to ask the author to make a special release
with different licence and then import it.

It is much better to reuse an excellent code of great projects like nginx,
postfix or dovecot than [re]write it from scratch.

~~~
there
_It is much better to ask the author to make a special release with different
licence and then import it._

good luck with that.

