Developers of Sympa

[Guillaume Rousse <address@concealed>]

I am new maintainer for mandrake sympa package, and I have a slight 
problem with wwsympa configuration.

Configuration script wizard use the following values for bounce_path and 
archive_path directives:
{'name' => 'arc_path',
'default' => '--DIR--/arc',
'query' => 'Where to store HTML archives',
'file' => 'wwsympa.conf','edit' => '1',
'advice' =>'Better if not in a critical partition'},

{'name' => 'bounce_path',
'default' => '--DIR--/bounce',
'query' => 'Where to store bounces',
'file' => 'wwsympa.conf',
'advice' =>'Better if not in a critical partition'},

However, the configure script doesn't offer corresponding substitution 
parameter and --with-dir doesn't work. --DIR-- always get substituted by 
/usr/lib/sympa (or maybe by --LIBDIR-- value, i didn't test further). It 
seems there is a problem there.

Moreover, the current mdk spec file, as well as the one included in the 
sympa tarball, creates /var/spool/sympa/wwsarchive and 
/var/spool/sympa/wwsbounce directories, apparently for this usage. 
However, whereas /var/spool is perfectly suited for a bounce queue, it 
is far less adapted for archive, that are permanent data. I'd rather use 
/var/lib for this.

Last, I don't understand why those directives are defined in web 
interface configuration file (wwsympa.conf), and not directly in global 
configuration file (sympa.conf). How does sympa keeps archives, when the 
web interface is not present? And why does the web interface also have a 
bounce directory, whereas sympa already has one?
--
If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
        -- Murphy's Laws of Computer Programming n°10