Re: Storage: service provider vs user

Iljitsch van Beijnum writes:
> I once asked someone from an ISP why they only support POP access and 
> not IMAP. His answer: "we want users to download their mail". Users 
> on the other hand like storing their mail on the server. I think a 
> new protocol should include semantics to handle these conflicting 
> goals, so that the user agent and the server can negotiate who stores 
> what. For instance, the server may be prepared to store mail for a 
> limited time or a maximum amount.

(Like RFC 2087? ;)

Aren't you really assuming that there is a flag day, on which every 
client, peer and server program on the net stops talking SMTP, LMTP, 
IMAP and POP, and starts talking *-NG protocols? IMNSHO, that's a 
hopeless assumption.

For example, while I'd want to support Mail-NG, I would also want my 
regular IMAP server to store both old mail and new mail, which implies 
that one version of IMAP must be able to present both RFC(2)822 and 
Mail-NG messsages. And for a while, I'd want to accept mail both via 
SMTP and SMTP-NG, too.

> In Fidonet and I think also UUCP messages are bundled in an archive so 
> that someone connects it's easy to download all new messages. Do we 
> want something like this in the new system?

Fidonet and UUCP both faded out of existence, didn't they? IMO, anything 
that borrows too much from their design is unlikely to storm the world.

Arnt