Subject: RFD: comp.mail.smail
From: [email-masked] (Ian Kluft)
Date: 7 Feb 1994 15:43:13 -0500
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,comp.mail.misc,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.linux.announce

Request for Discussion
unmoderated group comp.mail.smail

Newsgroups line:
comp.mail.smail            Administration of the smail e-mail transport system.

Smail is a mail transport agent (MTA) which has been freely available for Unix
systems for years.  It has been used by some who chose to replace the MTA
which was included with their OS or by others who had to find an MTA for an OS
that didn't include one.  Recently smail has picked up more momentum with its
acceptance as the official GNU e-mail transport system and its inclusion in
most of the distributions of Linux.

The increased usage has driven up the number of questions about smail on the
smail3-users mail list and somewhat also in the Linux newsgroups.  Some
knowledgeable users are experiencing an increased burden of questions brought
directly to them.  Smail has grown to the point that many people believe it
is time for a newsgroup of its own.  An e-mail poll in January 1994 to guage
interest in a possible comp.mail.smail newsgroup received 120 responses:
116 yes and 4 no.  On its own, that would have been enough votes to pass.
Since straw polls usually have smaller numbers of participants than official
votes, the large turnout for the smail poll indicates that it is time to make
an official newsgroup proposal.

PROPOSED CHARTER

   comp.mail.smail will be an unmoderated newsgroup for discussion of porting,
   using, configuring and administering the smail electronic mail transport
   agent (MTA).  It is primarily intended for smail 3 or later systems but
   older smail 2.5 questions may be also be included in the subject of the
   newsgroup.

Discussion about this proposal will be in news.groups.