[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Re: MMH project started

[From: Aniello Del Sorbo]

Zoran Kolic wrote:
>> I have started a new project on the garage.maemo.org
> 
> It looks like sound idea. A little bit closer to big box feeling. Just
> would like to suggest "getmail" as mail fetcher, since it doesn't wait
> for something on port 25. Connects to ports 110 and 995 on remote ser-
> ver and puts the content right to mbox or maildir, whereever you want.
> No need to do anything, hence it is python. My favorite "mutt" is now in
> colection. "Procmail" could filter to different directories as you
> expect, if really necessary. Little mail sender could be added. I liked
> "ssmtp", but "esmtp" is fine also. "Mutt" could be configured to pipe
> outgoing mail to "ssmtp" to reach remote smtp server. No big deal, as I
> see it. I have getmail and mutt working on 770, just ssmtp has to be
> compiled. I remember cacher for mutt, if you want the mail to be spooled
> and sent from file/directory.
> Memory footprint is the only backward of any idea in this direction. I
> agree that postfix cannot be taken as solution. Never used procmail and
> have nothing to say pro or contra. Little perl script that reads headers
> accordingly?
> Btw, yesterday I found it impossible to update repositories. Something
> changed?
> Best regards
> 
>                                             Zoran

I think I will skip procmail has it has some problems. On the fetchmail 
homepage they talk about it and say it does not report errors correctly 
so people risk to loose mails without noticing, and I do not like that 
at all. Also on the maildrop website they also report another problem 
with procmail, that is it will read the ENTIRE mail in memory before 
processing it! That's completely unacceptable for us. Moreover it's 
procmailrc uses a very complicated syntax.
So I am pretty sure I will skip it, probably in favor of maildrop.

I will take a look at getmail, even if right now it seems that fetchmail 
does everything I need. It can be configured to get mail from almost 
every server out there (and I did succeed for example in getting mail 
from gmail) and it can be configured to deliver mail via a local MDA 
(like maildrop for instance) that can filter and deliver locally the mails.
If getmail does support filtering, I might consider it.
If not I think the combination of fetchmail+maildrop should be enough to 
locally deliver mail.
(EDIT: I just read the getmail FAQ "Why did you write getmail? Why not 
just use fetchmail?". I will take a deep check on getmail, thanks!)

To correctly handle mails with MIME support, correct replying AND 
sending, I was thinking about nmh (hence the name 'mmh').
It is a set of command line tools to 'handle' mails. Handling means also 
sending it directly to the remote MX (so to fill up the gap on sending 
e-mails).
In the case the user wants a delayed deliver, I can simply use "at" or 
cron or something that can invoke the command line command at a 
specified time.

Indeed the footprint IS an issue.
'nmh' is quite big and python is big also.
But I think, with the advent of programs like Obscura and gPodder, many 
people will install python anyway, so that should not be a big issue.
(also if I/we choose getmail, it won't be an option, it'll be mandatory :) )

I am aware of little mail senders, but I still prefer the nmh path as it 
also gives me mail handling. Thus the Python UI will 'just' have to show 
everything in a friendly manner.

Everything in the spirit of Unix:
Each tool can do one simple thing, and do it better!

Thanks a lot for your suggestions.


--
anidel