Re: flexfax: Hylafax future (*not* on NT, please!)

[Richard Kail <Richard.Kail@imag.fr>]

Hello !

On Wed, 17 Sep 1997, Evan Leibovitch wrote:

> HylaFAX operation is the antithesis of the NT way of doing things. 
> Command-line administration, chains of compact tools rather than
> monolythic programs, no fancy GUIs, documentation in FAQs and manpages --
> all classic Unix methods. How much work would be required to make this
> usable in the NT world?

	Hm. There is something other... There are fax servers for Windows
NT, and they are not soooo bad. Why should we produce another one...

	The trick with Hylafax is, that it fits more or less perfectly in
Unix systems. This is the real value of Hylafax - not the pure
functionality of the package. If you are using a linux or unix box as a mail 
server, as a web server or whatever - you get also a fax server. With a
port to NT, Hylafax can only loose. The commercial packages are all
colorfull blinking beasts with dancing wizards and what ever. I think it
isn't worth to give them a competition...

	I think, the greatest point and problem of hylafax is the lack of
good client software for this. I made several attempts to create a windows 
client - I gave up every time. I also made a little bit reverse
engeneering of other fax packages for windows - they are hooking in the
windows printer driver system and do all other jobs by there own. Ok, WHFC
is a good work and the samba system is a good workaround - but both of
them have their specific problems.

Kind regards,
	Richard

-----
Richard Kail
c/o
Laboratoire TIMC IMAG
Universite Joseph Fourier
Grenoble