Section 9.6. Qmail

9.6. Qmail

Qmail^[2] is an MTA written by Daniel J. Bernstein, a University of Chicago professor. He needed a fast MTA to run his mailing lists. While I was working on Freemacs and Packet Drivers, I was also running my own mailing lists.

^[2] Qmail is not open source. It's freely copyable, but you can't redistribute modified executables. Although open source MTAs do exist, qmail is close enough to open source that I have insufficient reason to switch.

I experienced the same problems he did, so when he published qmail, I was on it right away. First, I ran it on a test machine, because I hate to lose email. Later, I ran it on my email hub after I learned to trust it. Slowly, the qmail community grew.

Working with qmail has been a different experience from Freemacs and Packet Drivers, as I did not write the qmail code. It's just as well, since that gives me something different to write about. It's a truism that you cannot sell something you don't own. A number of the techniques that I used for Packet Drivers do not work for qmail, as I don't own the copyright on it. Nonetheless, I have done quite well with qmail.

Open source software serves to promote the author. By writing quality software (code and documentation), the author shows everyone the quality of his work. The software pushes his reputation out into the world. But what if you haven't written the software? I have found the best technique is to spend time reading user forums and answering questions. You can advance your reputation in this manner.

There are other ways to establish your expertise with a particular program. You can contribute improvements to the code or documentation. You can write your own code that enhances the software, but that otherwise stands alone. You can also write extra documentation or maintain a web site about the software.

I did all these things for qmail. Dr. Bernstein was not interested in registering the qmail.org domain, so I did it for him and maintained the web site, and I wrote a POP3 daemon for qmail and gave it back to him. I answered questions on the qmail mailing list. I wrote add-on packages and patches that people have found useful.

Using all these techniques, I found paying qmail employment. Most often this came from people who needed qmail installed on their machines and had extra requirements that needed custom coding. Sometimes the customer wanted on-site qmail trainingwhich I have provided in Stockholm, Mumbai, London, New York City, Oslo, and Istanbul. All these trips were, of course, paid for by my customers, who also paid me.