On Fri, 19 Sep 2003, Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote: > Mark Crispin writes: > > Most of the people who express bewilderment about listing foo/ don't > > deal with such a store. > > Why should client authors deal with such a store? > > RFC 3501 gives me the impression that IMAP clients deal with IMAP only; > they're not supposed to care about which particular kind of store is in > use for each mailbox.
That is an extremely harmful position to take. IMAP does **NOT** (NOT!!!) define the semantics of a mail store in any way. Rather, IMAP is a means to export/import a mail store. IMAP goes to great lengths to inform the client about the semantics of the server's particular mail store, so that the client can make intelligent decisions in dealing with it. There is no such thing as an "IMAP mail store." The Cyrus mail store is netnews applied to mail; it is not in any way blessed by IMAP as special or superior over any other. The same holds true for a mail store which exports the UNIX filesystem, or any of a myriad number of other possibilities. A client MUST be able to handle all of these types of mail stores properly, using the tools provided by IMAP. A client MUST be able to deal with a mail store which has \NoSelect names with no children. A client MUST be able to deal with a mail store which has \NoInferiors names. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. Si vis pacem, para bellum.
