> That's one thing about Debian as I have started to perhaps
> understand a little more is time it may take to get bugs fixed. I do
> understand that Spam Assassin is a program not a part of Debian or
> Ubuntu in any way.

This is not just a property of Debian. It applies to all Linux
distribution.

The job of a distribution is to collect together lots of software from
other people and put them together in a way that they work
together. The distribution itself writes very little software. The
installer probably comes from the distribution builders. Some artwork
comes from the distribution builders. Some of the configuration files
come from the distribution. But 99.99% comes from the so could
'upstream', the original software authors.

This plays a role when reporting bugs. Take this spamassassin
problem. Is the problem with the configuration files which Ubuntu
themselves created? Or is the problem with the upstream software?

If the problem is with the way the distribution integrated
spamassassin into the distribution, you should report the issue to the
distribution. If the problem is with spamassassin itself, you should
report the problem to upstream, the spamassassin authors.

       Andrew