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Re: [MORG] Why IMAP extensions are (not) used
IMAP extensions are not used much for the following reasons:
[1] Almost all IMAP extensions are worthless garbage.
Oh, they may be valuable to some limited constituency, but not generally.
Some servers may do UNSELECT or NAMESPACE or CHILDREN because they are
low-hanging fruit, or IDLE for mobile devices. It is nearly impossible to
make a business case for the rest, especially the recent batch.
[2] Non-compliant servers destroy what limited value there is to an
extension.
Any client developer who depends upon an extension quickly discovers that
the client fails when talking to some server. No amount of "it's the
server's fault" will help; the customer will invariably say "it works with
Outlook and Thunderbird, so it MUST be a bug in your client."
To some extent, the customer is right; the client author depended upon an
extension. That is a bug.
Courier is particularly ruthless in destroying by mis-implementation.
[3] Combinatorial behavior.
This is more a matter of perception than a real technical problem.
Nonetheless the people who do QA and regression testing are alarmed by the
2^n combinations that need testing.
You should be too.
Last but not least...
[4] The refusal to allow IMAP Extensions to die.
IMAPEXT was dragged out long beyond the point where it should have been
killed.
When IMAPEXT was finally killed, IMAP Extensions moved to LEMONADE.
LEMONADE completely missed its window of opportunity, due in part to
everybody sneaking in their favorite IMAP extension as a LEMONADE
requirement. Deep down inside, they knew that this extension didn't stand
a snowball's chance in hell of any market penetration.
Now that LEMONADE is dying, along comes MORG which is simply a new name
for IMAPEXT
Slay this dragon. By whatever means necessary. Do it now.
-- Mark --
http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.