Re: Comments on IM2000

On Mon, Apr 11, 2005 at 08:04:11PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote:
> The problem with im2000 has always been that SMTP is the standard
> mail protocol, and no one really wants to deal with implementing an
> alternative.
> 
> But, as a replacement for IMAP, all of a sudden the idea starts taking
> life.
> 
> In principle, at least, you could have im2000 with smtp as a message
> source, and you could build up a fairly nifty set of mail client
> applications around it.  You don't get any spam relief this way, but
> you do get some of the other benefits if you use some variant as a mail
> folder management system.

And conversely, there will be others who want to use it as a cleaner mail
transport replacing SMTP, but keep their legacy IMAP applications with a
proxy to interface to new architecture. Both paths are workable.

I don't think any new transport will gain acceptance unless it has some
tangible benefits, and probably the key one is anti-phishing - identifying
the sender unambiguously, preferably with their E-mail address.

Another problem I have with IM2000 is the repeated retransmissions of
receipt notifications, which may go on for maybe a month or more if the
recipient is not checking their mail. But nobody is *really* going to make
the RNA not have persistent storage; rebooting an RNA and losing a day's
worth of notifications would be far too serious an event.

Hmm. Updated my web page with a few more musings, in particular the
separation of message stores from message notification agents (which might
appeal if you are considering IM2000 primarily as a replacement for IMAP
rather than SMTP)

Regards,

Brian.