On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Christof Drescher wrote: > So what? A server for which it is "expensive" to do this status update - > don't advertise it in your CAPABILITY and you need not bother coding it. > Right? Even if you advertise it and for a certain folder it is to expensive, > give a NO response. You are fine with the specs.
The problem with that is from the client's point of view, it does not reliably have the capability to do something that it does not want to do. The key to producing interoperable protocols is to resist pressure to create something that naturally favors one implementation over another. If this is not done, then inevitably the result will be that Microsoft will be the only vendor that supports the standards and everybody else is locked out. Why? Because the minute that a standards group starts the game of adding things that favor one implementation over another, all the vendors will react defensively and pour the resources into this defense. Microsoft, as the vendor with the most resources, is the inevitable winner of such conflict. The only way to prevent this outcome is for everybody (including Microsoft!) to agree not to play the game, and to cooperate in achieving something that can be widely implemented. At times, this can mean reducing a proposal to what is necessary as opposed to what one might desire in an ideal world. > Needed: Notification of new mail arrival in unselected mailboxes Good definition. Since you only need notification of new mail arrival in unselected mailboxes, then the solution should be tightly focused on accomplishing that goal. STATUS is not necessary, and can involve excessive costs. These costs have nothing to do with new mail. The costs are in STATUS data which, for the limited purpose of new mail notification, are frills! Not only that, but STATUS does not really tell you about new mail. The client has to infer it. Is it in MESSAGES count? Is it the RECENT count? Is it the UNSEEN count? Is it the UIDNEXT? It's probably not the UIDVALIDITY but it might be. I can give pretty good arguments why any (and none!) of these announce new mail. For new mail notification, you only need to know what the MDA knows. Most MDAs do not know all the IMAP-specific things that STATUS delivers. The MDA knows the return-path, the delivery mailbox, and the actual message contents. There's a lot that can be done with these for new mail notification. So, my answer is to do something better. I think that "something better" is something smaller and can be done at any MDA so there will be little excuse not to do it. But that is not a universally held opinion. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. Si vis pacem, para bellum.
