On Thursday, Mar 28, 2002, at 20:06 US/Pacific, Mark Crispin wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Mar 2002, Grant Baillie wrote:
>> I recently ran across an IMAP server which advertises several extra 
>> capabilities after you've successfully issued a LOGIN.
>
> The short answer to your question is that the world has changed.
>
> The slightly longer answer is that the introduction of TLS and a better 
> understanding of SASL necessitated a change to the "capabilities don't 
> change" policy.
>
> Consequently, clients can not assume that capabilities won't change.

Well, I understand that they need to change sometimes. But leaving open 
the option of their changing any time, without notice, seems wrong. 
Otherwise, how can clients be sure that it's OK to cache them? In 
principle (if not in practice), they'd have to issue CAPABILITY before 
issuing any extension command, for example.

________________________________________
Grant Baillie
Mac OS X Mail - Apple Computer, Inc.
________________________________________

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