Up to now no response from SuSE concerning this issue...
Can we expect to get SMTP AUTH soon for the existing SuSE distributions?
Support for the older distributions means that we're offering security updates or fixes for bugs that break things (features). If you want to have this feature for an older distribution, you'd have to compile it yourself. It will be an endless bug-hunting desaster if we start backporting new features. You never know what else you break if you backport, especially because you need newer versions of certain libraries and helper programs (sometimes only in the build environment, not runtime). In most cases it may work, but in some other cases, somebody else will complain. In the particular case of sendmail there's an annoying version conflict with libdl that we managed to resolve. Backporting means to upgrade this lib, which is incompatible with other software on the distribution. You install from the ftp server or you bought the CDs in a store. You expect a bugfree collection of software, nicely preconfigured, and up-to-date. But while you enjoy it, you don't know which conflicts and other problems have been resolved on the way there (You'd find out if you try to get some stuff from their respective sources and compile and install it yourself. Not only some xmms plugin. Think about X-servers, kde libraries, kernels, compilers, ...) In other words, there's plenty of work in such a distribution, and believe me, there is much more work in it than the amount of money may indicate. Anyway; The SuSE-7.2 release will have it.
Regards, Marko
Thanks,
Roman.
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| Roman Drahtmüller