bogofilter on cygwin (works)

[Tom Anderson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Boris 'pi' Piwinger" <3.14 at piology.org>
Subject: Re: bogofilter on cygwin (works)

> The question is: Who are the users? My impression is that
> many users here are end users (meaning: people not running
> the filter for several users, but only for themselves). This
> user group often uses Windows and does not have access to
> its mail server. So they cannot use Bogofilter. Not even
> those who have a local (Windows) mail server as included in
> the pretty popular Hamster package could run Bogofilter.


It seems to me that users who prefer Windows would prefer commercial 
solutions for their email filtering.  Users who would prefer open source 
solutions should likewise prefer open source operating systems.  If there 
were a bogofilter maintained for Windows, then I would suggest setting up a 
for-profit company to provide support contracts, engage in marketing, and 
defend lawsuits.  History would seem to indicate that only open source 
projects which go this route have any success on Windows.  Otherwise, it is 
probably a waste of time.  From my personal experience, I know that many 
companies will not install open source programs without support contracts 
and liable providers.  And home-users generally use web-based email these 
days for their personal communications, and thus do not need local mail 
filtering.

Furthermore, I would prefer that the skilled and generous developers and 
maintainers of bogofilter concentrate on continuing to make bogofilter 
useful, not popular.  There are already too many popular but useless 
programs out there.  Why should popularity be a goal of bogofilter?  It is 
already popular among those of us who appreciate its usefulness.  Let's not 
degrade its popularity amongst its strongest supporters by losing that 
focus.

Tom