Re: Internet Draft for flexible proxying of the mail protocols

[Philip Hazel <[e-mail]>]

On 2 Oct 2000, Kai Henningsen wrote:

> Um, there's *nothing* in POP that requires "a download of the entire  
> mailbox to check for new messages".

I have to confess I don't know much about POP. I'm trying to interpret 
comments I hear from people who do run it. I guess this must apply to 
the way it gets used in some configurations/implementations.

> The copying of mbox files you probably mean is a feature of POP servers  
> which use mbox mail files, which certainly isn't the best design in the  
> world. 

Oh, absolutely. We use them because we are stuck with them for various 
reasons (not a sealed server, for a start). A large, single mbox file
full of messages is a disaster at start-up for pretty well any MUA.

> Don't blame the protocol for a suboptimal implementation.

I should have been clear that I was talking about particular 
implementation/configuration circumstances, not "every possible way you 
could use POP". Sorry.

-- 
Philip Hazel            University of Cambridge Computing Service,
[e-mail]      Cambridge, England. Phone: [phone].