Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I haven't yet encountered an ISP POP3 server that doesn't do TOP.
> I've only found one that didn't do UIDL.
So would you have mutt use, or not use, the TOP command, and the UIDL
command?
> Note that fetchmail quite happily uses "TOP n 999999" instead of "RETR
> n" to retrieve e-mail. According to the comments in fetchmail's
> pop3.c, this method very rarely fails. (I saw a case recently where
> it did fail, but this was because the server had a buggy
> implementation of TOP, not because it didn't implement TOP.)
See, now we get to the case of why users are pointed to fetchmail:
Because fetchmail has been bloated, er, I mean, specifically written to
understand these buggy servers and try its best to deal with them.
Trying to add this POP3 support to Mutt, you're going to run into the
same problems, and probably get buried under user complaints about how
things don't work just the way they want them to.
I think the Mutt developers are shying away from POP3 support on two
grounds: First, on a somewhat technical ground, since POP3 is not a
very good protocol, and the only reason everyone wants to use it is that
it's so ubiquitous. If users could only put pressure on their ISP's to
get IMAP servers installed (which is not a very difficult job for an
administrator to do!), then they wouldn't need to be demanding POP3
support from Mutt!
Second, on a political ground, once Mutt claims that it will support
POP3 mailboxes in this form, users will start to whine and complain
because of all the buggy implementations of POP3 out there. The Mutt
developers don't really enjoy listening to complaints. I wonder just
how many the tkrat, balsa, and other MUA's get...
--
David DeSimone | "The doctrine of human equality reposes on this:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | that there is no man really clever who has not
Hewlett-Packard | found that he is stupid." -- Gilbert K. Chesterson
UX WTEC Engineer | PGP: 5B 47 34 9F 3B 9A B0 0D AB A6 15 F1 BB BE 8C 44
