On Sun, 16 Feb 2003, Charlie Brady wrote: >On Tue, 4 Feb 2003, Timo Sirainen wrote: >> Sorry, I just got a bit disappointed after reading the the web page first. >> Your lines of code comparisions just seemed to imply that your server does >> everything that others would but with only a fraction of code. >Well, it doesn't claim to support other than Maildir, but it does claim to >be a full IMAP4rev1 implementation.
The lines on comparison on Binc's web page are there as an example of how com it is completely possible to write an IMAP4rev1 compliant server with only a few lines of code, yes. >> When you write something from scratch, I think it's a good idea to design it >> so that it's superior to existing implementations in at least some ways >Are you suggesting that Andreas hasn't done this? I beleive that the first and most important stage in writing a good IMAP server is to implement the full unextended protocol in such a way that it serves perfectly as a drop-in for its competitors. The fancy features come easily later on when the design is modular. >> just make a clone with slightly different coding style. If all you wanted >> was a clone with some changes (and better maintainer), forking the project >> would be much smaller job. >Who would want a clone of Courier IMAP? :-) I wonder what the motives for the author of Dovecot IMAP was when he started his project. >> Separating the pre-login process from post-login process would probably be a >> good idea to keep their functionality completely separated. It would also be >> easier to audit the pre-login code if you knew exactly what there is. >> After logging in, you could just exec() the post-login process. >Agreed. Given that qmail-pop3d was an inspiration, I'm surprised this >hasn't been done. >You might look at http://www.untroubled.org/mailfront/imapfront.html for a >pre-existing pre-login imapd. Doesn't handle STARTTLS though. I too agree, and this will be done. I wouldn't want to comment on Dovecot's design, since I'm no fan of trolling. The project clearly has different goals than Binc. Dovecot wants excellent features, indexing and an advanced security promoting design. It even recently included a POP server. What's the reasoning there? I'm providing a complete IMAP server that's as easy to use as qmail-pop3d. The fancy features are for the post-stable versions. :-) Andy -- Andreas Aardal Hanssen | http://www.andreas.hanssen.name/gpg Author of Binc IMAP | Nil desperandum
