>3) "Why not imagine a new protocol?" Because, truly, the world does not need >yet another protocol that overlaps with 98% of one or more existing >protocols.
In this case, it does need a new protocol. IMAP was never intended to do what you're asking of it. Twisting the semantics of an existing protocol to the point of breaking it is not good engineering. And what you are proposing to do to IMAP is going to break backward compatibility. You cannot dismiss backward compatibility by waving your hands and making statements about how clients should upgrade to make the world a better place. Many clients simply cannot be upgraded (one example: clients running on embedded hardware). This alone makes your proposal a non-starter. But at a more fundamental level, you need to step back and accurately define the specific problem you are trying to solve, outside of the context of *any* known protocol. Once you thoroughly understand the problem, a reasonably simple solution should present itself. --lyndon
