WG Review: JSON Mail Access Protocol (jmap)

[The IESG <[e-mail]>]

A new IETF WG has been proposed in the Applications and Real-Time Area.
The IESG has not made any determination yet. The following draft charter
was submitted, and is provided for informational purposes only. Please
send your comments to the IESG mailing list ([e-mail]) by
2017-02-13.

JSON Mail Access Protocol (jmap)
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Current status: Proposed WG

Chairs:
  TBD

Assigned Area Director:
  Alexey Melnikov <[e-mail]>

Applications and Real-Time Area Directors:
  Ben Campbell <[e-mail]>
  Alissa Cooper <[e-mail]>
  Alexey Melnikov <[e-mail]>
 
Mailing list:
  Address: [e-mail]
  To subscribe: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/jmap
  Archive: https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/search/?email_list=jmap

Group page: https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/jmap/

Charter: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/charter-ietf-jmap/

A number of JSON-based representations of email have been developed
that are proprietary, non-standard, and incompatible with each other.
These protocols are proliferating due
to existing standards being insufficient or poorly suited to the
environments they are operating in, particularly mobile and webmail.

The use of multiple protocols
to perform actions within a single application creates significant
support challenges, as users may get a variety of partial failure modes
(for example, can receive email, but can not send new messages).
This is further exacerbated if the different protocols are
authenticated separately.

The JMAP working group will specify a mechanism to allow clients to
both view and send email from a server over a single stateless HTTPS
channel with minimal round trips. A single protocol for receipt and
submission will resolve long-standing difficulties users face
setting up clients to talk to servers.

The protocol will support
push notification of changes using the mechanism defined in RFC 8030.
This will give mobile clients benefits in terms of battery life and
network usage. It will also support push notifications via server-sent
events (https://www.w3.org/TR/eventsource/) for direct connection to
clients that can support persistent TCP connections.

The work of this group is limited to developing a protocol for a client
synchronising data with a server. Any server-to-server issues
are out of scope for this working group.
New end-to-end encryption mechanisms are out of scope, but the work
should
consider how to integrate with existing standards such as S/MIME and
OpenPGP.

The working group will coordinate with the Security Area on credential
management and authentication.

Input to working group discussions shall include:

- CONDSTORE and QRESYNC
[RFC 7162]

- Collection Synchronisation for WebDav
[RFC 6578]

- LEMONADE and experiences from adoption of its output
[https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/lemonade/charter/]

- SMTP SUBMISSION
[RFC 6409]

- SMTP BURL
[RFC 4468]

The working group will deliver the following:

- A problem statement detailing the deployment environment and
  situations that motivate work on a new protocol for client to
  server email synchronisation.  The working group may choose
  not to publish this as an RFC.

- A document describing an extensible protocol and data structures, with
  support for flood control and batched operations, and operating over
  a stateless connection such as HTTPS.

- A document describing how to use the extensible protocol over HTTPS
  with the data structures expressed as JSON.

- A document describing a data model for email viewing, management,
  searching, and submission on top of the extensible protocol.

- An executable test suite and documented test cases to assist
  developers of JMAP servers to ensure they conform to the
  specifications.

Milestones: