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

[Cyrus Daboo <[e-mail]>]

Hi Thomas,

--On February 10, 2012 3:44:50 PM +0100 Thomas Koch <[e-mail]> wrote:

>> * updates.  Would need to poll or use long polling to get real-time
>> updates (e.g. notification of incoming mail).
> Could Websockets or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_(programming) be
> of  help here?

For CalDAV and CardDAV we (Apple, http://calendarserver.org) have used XMPP 
pubsub and our own APNS to implement a push notification service. Frankly I 
think the IETF should have developed a proper notification protocol for use 
alongside other protocols a long time ago - simply "blessing" XMPP pubsub 
as the solution for that would be fine from a standards point, but perhaps 
something else (new) coukld be done too. What then needs to be defined are 
the hooks in each underlying protocol to allow clients to discover the 
appropriate pubsub service. In CalDAV/CardDAV that is simply done using 
WebDAV properties to advertise the essential client push configuration.

So, in my opinion, whilst push notifications should be a requirement for 
imap5, we should not define that protocol and instead push the IETF to 
provide such a protocol for general use.

-- 
Cyrus Daboo