Re: [imap5] Designing a new replacement protocol for IMAP

[Giovanni Panozzo <[e-mail]>]

> I found some older initiatives to replace IMAP with an HTTP based approach.[2]
> What do you think of HTTP for mail access? For my bachelor thesis[3] I
> currently argue that CardDAV/CalDAV could be perfectly replaced by AtomPub
> (RFC 5023).
> The main advantage would be that most software developers on this planet have
> some vague understanding of HTTP and that imense infrastructure and software
> already exists.


Hi Bron, hi Thomas.
I'm happy to see this interesting traffic on the ML.

Just a small note: these two post are full of "programmer point of view" 
considerations and philosophical ideals. That's good.

But I'm mostly "system integrator", involved also with end-user 
helpdesk. I'm a programmer also, but only form 2% of my time, so I'm not 
a "professional programmer".
I would like to contribute with other key points useful both to system 
integrators, helpdesk and end user (moron end user) ease to use (I have 
a long list... do you want it ? :))

Here are my first notes about HTTP: I think HTTP is welcome. Many mobile 
phone carriers do offer only http/https connectivity, sometimes filtered 
by a transparent proxy too. In some enterprise LANs, users are forced to 
use an http proxy with proxy authentication to access the Internet. No 
other protocols are allowed. HTTP would allow all these users to access 
their e-mail without requiring impossible access upgrades.
And HTTP completed with digest authentication and email body encryption 
also will also help sysadmins to have more security without incurring 
into the SSL certificate infrastructure pains.
Http is also "stateless" from its birth: the advantage is that we can 
better serve clients with intermittent connections (point 3 in Bron's 
list), like mobile phones or poorly connected wifi laptops.


Giovanni

PS: I think that crossposting in 3 ML is too much. Which one will be the 
official ML for this discussion ?