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Re: [ITP] email-2.3.0


Christopher Faylor wrote:


> I'm sorry but, here again, we're talking about porting an AFAICT,
> non-standard package to cygwin when we're missing something as basic as
> "mailx" (or nail, or whatever).

Given that argument, how would a new program ever become "standard"?

> Isn't there anyone out there who can perform the dead-simple act of
packaging
> up nail for this purprose?

It can't be that simple to port, or someone would have already done it.
Christ, I can't even untar nail to my Cygwin box as it contains a file named
aux.c.

Also, given that
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/nail/nail/README?rev=HEAD&view=markup
states:

"On the other hand, I strongly discourage from porting nail to Windows
and environments that make Windows look Unix-like; I won't accept any
patches or suggestions that go in this direction. There are two major
reasons for this: First, any port makes maintaining harder; there are
always more work-arounds in the source, and introducing new features
involves the question whether they will work an all supported platforms.
The more different a platform behaves from, let's say, the common Unix
way, the more hacks have to be made, costing human time that could
otherwise have been used to enhance the software for Unix platforms.
Windows is just not worth this, and here we are at the second point:
Porting software to Windows encourages people to use -- that is: to buy
-- Windows. It supports a company that is known to threaten Open Source
software like nail. In short, porting nail (or similar free software)
to Windows has an ill effect on that software. Don't do it."

I have no desire to port nail to Cygwin.  If you can recommend another
alternative, I'm all ears.

If not, then given how responsive and helpful Dean Jones was in applying my
Cygwin patches to email, maybe we should support his application, instead of
a program written by someone who is so unwilling to work with us, no matter
how "standard" it is.

-Ross


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