Re: Webmail is implementation, not Internet architecture (was Re: Change the mailing list protocol, not DMARC.)

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 3:14 AM, Dave Crocker <[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 6/12/2014 6:33 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 10:50 AM, John C Klensin <[e-mail]
> ...
> >     (2) One of those changes --support for remote body parts-- was
> >     incorporated into MIME in its very first version and contains
> >     most of the mechanism needed to support what I understand PHB is
> >     recommending for PUSH-PULL-PULL.  It has been implemented in
> >     several places but has gotten very little traction in the mail
> >     sending and receiving community.  IMO, it ought to be incumbent
> >     on anyone proposing a different "get notification, then retrieve
> >     mail from server" model explain why their ideas will be more
> >     successful than that 20-odd-year-old MIME mechanism.
> >
> > In a word - WebMail.
>
> This is a classic confusion between software implementation and
> operation, vesus networking architecture.
>
> Webmail is nothing more than a particular style of user interface,
> integrated into the operations of a particular service.


It is the mode used by the majority of mail users today. Which makes it
rather more than just technology from a deployment point of view.

Of course WebMail is simple, I implemented a version of Webmail in 1993. It
took me less than a week to get it running. Would have taken me a day if
not for the fact that I found the POST method was broken. So it was the
first version of WebMail to be able to send mail.

And yes I am aware of the patent lawsuit. That is why we got into the whole
history bit.


It's a useful operating mode, within its limits, which typically
> includes requiring full-time connectivity.  As good as user access to
> the Internet often is, requiring it all the time, for doing email, is a
> pretty serious limitation.
>

Yes, I invented it and I didn't use it until Gmail launched. WebMail is
only useful with high bandwidth links.

But if you are looking to change the mail system those limits are
irrelevant as they don't stop people using it.




> More importantly, it isn't interoperable, in the sense we use the term
> in the IETF, since it locks the user into the service provider for
> literally everything.
>

Umm, how do you work this one out? I am using gmail right now with my
[e-mail] address.




> There's no user ability to have a different MUA, different email
> storage, different address book, different anything.


Perhaps you should look at something before you speak about it. You are
completely wrong about all of those. In fact most MUA these days have
specific handling to integrate with gmail, yahoo, etc.




> By having things
> locked into the recipient's own email service provider, there is no way
> to distribute out enhancements.
>
> So, for example, there is no way for the /author/ to declare an
> attachment as being located somewhere else.
>

Software authors have been declaring IETF approved features junk and
refusing to implement them for years.

The fact that the mail providers don't snap to attention and implement a
feature because it is agreed by an IETF committee does not mean that they
will never implement it. Who proposes the feature and what they do to get
it deployed makes the difference.

Another thing that makes the difference is time and situation. I invented
WebMail in 1993 but Gmail didn't launch till 2004. And it was the
combination of high bandwidth, generous storage allowances and the fact
Javascript no longer crashed after three seconds that made modern WebMail
possible.


Consider the issue, the next time you want to send someone an instant
> message.  Do you send it via SMS, google, facebook, yahoo, skype or --
> oh yeah -- aol?  That's a really prime example of the derivative effects
> of excessive integration witha provider: combinatorial explosion rather
> than seamless Internet integration.
>

Well maybe the reason that problem hasn't been addressed is that too many
people take notice of the people whose only function is to tell them that
something can't be done, won't work, etc.

It was thirty years from the start of project Xanadu to the birth of the
web. Plenty of people thought it impossible




> And the view that it is sufficient to have a client which integrates all
> the heterogeneous services into a single user interface misses the
> operational complexities and lack of interoperability they are living with.
>
>
> > I don't read all my mail in Webmail,
>
> Why not.  If it's so wonderful, then why isn't it being used for all
> your email?


Same reason that I use Linux, Windows and Mac every single day. Same reason
I have three different home automation systems in my house. Same reason I
just bought a 3D mill kit despite the fact that there is a CNC Mill and
Lathe in the basement already.

I don't want to become a technological fossil who is clinging to some
obsolete tool that the market passed by long ago. This is a technology
business, if you want to contribute you have see what is happening in every
part of it.