Reasons behind defaulting atd and sendmail

[Chris Tyler]

On Fri, 2008-09-05 at 14:48 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-09-05 at 10:13 -0400, Chris Tyler wrote:
> > (b) Without sendmail or another MTA there, there is zero chance of
> > being able to send outbound e-mail without doing configuration.
> 
> Assuming that "configuration" here is meant in the sense of
> "configuration of an MTA" this is simply not true. Every MUA I know
> allows you to send directly to port 25 of your upstream provider.

For sure. But the original statement it is true when "configuration"
means "configuration of the MTA or MUA".

Let me clarify: In my case, on my desktop at work and on my home
machines, I can do a default installation of Fedora and then send mail
without knowing anything about the ISP. (Yes, I know that won't work for
everyone, but it wfm in multiple settings).

Some MUAs ("mail" included :-) send via sendmail by default; others
require the user to specify "sendmail" for outbound mail. But when
"sendmail" is selected in Evolution, no more configuration is required;
when "SMTP" is selected, seven additional fields appear for the user to
figure out (server, authentication, encryption, ...).

-Chris