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USENIX Technical Program - Abstract - USENIX 99
Sendmail Evolution: 8.10 and Beyond
Gregory Neil Shapiro and Eric Allman, Sendmail, Inc.
Abstract
SendmailTM has been the de facto mail transfer agent implementation since the dawn of
the Internet. Today, sendmail development is still driven by a continually changing set
of network requirements and user demands. Lately,two new driving forces have also
contributed to sendmail development. First, as more open source mail transfer agents,
such as Exim and Postfix, become available, a new friendly competition has developed
in which the authors of the various MTAs share their ideas via open source and help to
advance open standards as opposed to advancing their own particular implementation.
Second, a new "hybrid" company, Sendmail, Inc., has been created to offer commercial
versions of the open source software while continuing to fuel open source development.
This paper will briefly discuss the evolution of sendmail;the influences which drive
sendmail development; and how the creation of Sendmail, Inc. has contributed to the
open source version. The paper will also describe the new features appearing in the
next "functionality release" of open source sendmail.In particular,changes in
queueing and new protocol support are discussed. Finally,the authors will speculate on
future directions for sendmail.
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