Ives, This is an interesting proposal. First thing is, I think Ipswitch should write any RFCs, as standards are usually led by vendors and have inherent PR potential. Second, there already are substantial existing open-source and proprietary steps in this direction that should be consulted by anyone wishing to go further:
1) Perdition, which we have run (since ripped out and replaced with F5 equipment) at one client. http://www.vergenet.net/linux/perdition/ 2) POPular, which uses its own limited XPOP protocol for POP3 maildir location. http://www.remote.org/jochen/mail/popular/doc/html/popular.htm 3) Service Location Protocol (SLP), variants of which are already used by MS and Novell for their directory services and which already has a server type POP3 (this RFC really trumps any idea of having another RFC adopted that provides a subset of its functionality, but it's still possible). http://www.openslp.org/doc/rfc/rfc2614.txt 4) C----------e Pro (I don't like mentioning competitors by name) supports transparent POP3 clustering. > Anyone interested in writing an RFC for Dynamic Mail client > Configuration Protocol (DMCP)? If there is an RFC presented, rather than being its own protocol, I think it should be written as a service extension, first implemented within Imail, then maybe standardized (Exchange 2000 uses private ESMTP verbs for interserver communications, so this would be sort of in that vein). I would suggest that the easiest service to extend would be POP3 itself, much like XPOP. The command set could be augmented for a member of a cluster to accept a locator query (FIND [EMAIL PROTECTED] or something), which could even be executed in the most primitive form by using Imail's peering functionality to scan a cluster, then (this would be new) cache the response for a preset period. The compliant client would then make a standard POP3 connection to the response string. Of course, it would be more robust to have a true master LDAP or other directory to consult. > I'm sure we've all come to realize that the major downfall of POP and IMAP > is that the clients don't have the intelligence to redirect themselves to a > server that their mail file resides on (one of the motivating factors to > move from inexpensive software to more expensive solutions like Exchange or > Lotus, particularly in a mission-critical environment or companies where > reselling email services is the name of the game). I doubt anyone could, or would, move from being a POP3/SMTP ASP to being an RPC ASP, least of all for this reason. Can't speak for Notes as a managed solution, but outsourcing Exchange is no small shakes. Most companies still doing it started out overcapitalized in 1999 and are still falling. > Ipswitch could easily push themselves further ahead of the > competition by becoming the most popular email package by adding a > single feature. It would indeed be a very compelling feature, and the sort of thing to try to get Eudora, The Bat! et al. to support first, then maybe writing a Windows Messaging service to increase adoption. As for our making a detailed feature request, I think that's a great idea, and Ipswitch has been, contrary to the impression given by difficulties in the debugging arena, very responsive to formally presented requests. -Sandy Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html to be removed from this list. An Archive of this list is available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Please visit the Knowledge Base for answers to frequently asked questions: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
