[imapext] multisort proposals (was Re: draft-ietf-appsawg-multimailbox-search)

[Chris Newman <[e-mail]>]

It sounds like IMAP cross-folder sort is a big non-interoperable mess right 
now due to lack of standardization.

Have any of you considered writing a specification of your multisort 
protocol? Or maybe arrange a phone call between proponents of the 
"xconvmultisort" proposal, the "X-MAILBOX, X-REAL-UID" and the "\all" 
proposals to see if consensus on a standard approach is possible?

Standards have several benefits for the vendors who participate:

1. If you have an early implementation, that's a key marketing/selling 
point.

2. It gives your customers more choice of the other side when they choose 
your product. (more client options if you're a server vendor, or vice-versa 
if you're a client vendor).

3. It improves your reputation. It shows you care about the future of your 
customers and the future of the Internet.

4. It raises the innovation baseline. Once a standard is written and 
successful, it becomes "common practice" over time. Then there's no more 
need to proselytize that standard, new innovation can start with that 
standard as a baseline.

5. Once a standard is approved, you're much less likely to have to waste 
time and effort implementing two or more ways of doing the same thing to 
interoperate with different implementations.

6. It's one way a smaller vendor can get a leg-up on a bigger vendor who 
ignores standards.

While private IMAP extensions are fine for experiments, they're an 
interoperability problem when more than one for the same purpose show up. 
Why not take the time to write and progress a protocol specification so you 
and your customers reap the benefits and the community's innovation 
baseline is raised?

		- Chris