Managing email [ was Re: D 1.076 and 2.061 release ]

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Thu, 03 Jan 2013 20:09:24 +0000
Russel Winder <russel at winder.org.uk> wrote:

> On Thu, 2013-01-03 at 14:17 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> […]
> > Whoa. Four instances "I run my own SMTP and IMAP server" in about
> > as many paragraphs. You must feel quite strongly about that...
> 
> :-)
> 
> Originally I was doing it to make sure I could sys admin
> Apache/Postfix/Dovecot (previously Courier IMAP) then I realized it
> was so straightforward there was little point in using a hosting
> agent.

Sounds like you must be very good at Linux. I would never have been
able to do it without this guide:

http://library.linode.com/email/postfix/dovecot-mysql-debian-6-squeeze

I found that to be more contrived, obscure, and needlessly
over-complicated than anything else I've ever had to set up on (or off) a computer.

The result is worth it, of course, but geez, what a bunch of pointless
hoops. No reason I shouldn't have been able to just do something like:

$ sudo apt-get install sane-email-server

Then maybe answer a few simple questions, and be done with it.


> I had a system crash whilst away a couple of years ago and
> had to use GMail for a few days. It became apparent that whatever the
> terms of service say, Google were scanning all emails and using the
> data to create an advertising profile which was clearly then used to
> generate income for Google. Clearly this is the quid pro quo for
> getting free email, but I don't like the price. Worse I used to have
> one identity with Google Accounts, but having created a Google Mail
> account, Google switched the primary key to the Google Mail
> identifier and will not allow that to be changed.  Facebook tried the
> same trick. This is really annoying and lowers the value of the
> brands for me. Result, I have my server hardware here and run all the
> services myself locally.
> 

Yea. Google's "Don't be evil" is a complete load of self-rationalizing
bullshit. I mean, christ, their whole business is based on
mining/selling personal information, and then they twist and contort the
web technologies themselves into whatever they see fit (people bitch
when *Microsoft* tries to do it, but when Big Brother does it it's
apparently ok), and then they have the audacity to pretend their mantra
is "Don't be evil." I hate Microsoft as much as anyone, but I'd sell my
soul to MS if it got rid of companies like Google and Apple.