Subject: IMAP is a failure?

From: [email-masked] (Tomas Kullman)
Date: 27 Jul 1994 19:42:45 GMT

In "Open Systems Today", June 20, 1994, page 72 "TCP/IP Packages"
5th column 3rd paragraph you can read:

"At one time, IMAP was a serious <unreadable word> against POP for the
remote-access E-mail protocol crown, but POP appears to have won, at
least for now."

(Sorry for <unreadable word>. Let's blame my fax's lack of resolution)

The conclusion seem to be based on the ratio between mailreaders POP
versus IMAP support among TCP/IP packages for Windows PCs.

I happens to know about at least one big software vendor being
_very_ concerned about this article and making future plans
accordingly. Not a very substancial decision may be, but the
tendency is somewhat alarming.

If many vendors put importance in these kind of speculating articles
and, even worse, take a journalist's interpretation as facts of life,
we are in trouble, folks.

I think most of the people out there don't understand the benefits of
IMAP. They seem to think one mail access protocol is enough and choose
the one they understand most/that is least complicated/have been around
longest.

I guess a _big_ obstacle for IMAP is the delayed process of making
the draft of IMAP4 to a RFC.

Is IMAP too complicated to implement?

If c-client hadn't been there for us to catch, we had definitely been
an average POP client today. We hadn't been able to do the core coding
ourself, due to limited budget. Thank's Mark, you saved us.

Are big vendors afraid to rely on free software? Too bad if they have
to invent the wheel all over again just because of some principle. Or
rather, select technology by initial cost and not by functionality.

Comments, please...

(Note that this posting is biased by my own fondness of IMAP :)
--
        Tomas Kullman <[email-masked]>
        ICL ProSystems AB, SWEDEN
        "Cyberspace is one of my vices"
        "Dreaming is another..."

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From: [email-masked] (Bill Campbell)
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 08:23:51 -0700 (PDT)

>..... 
I don't think that this is the reason for the preponderance of POP
based mailers, but that many people need something that minimizes
connection times because they're not directly connected to a network.
It seems that most of the single-user PC based solutions are aimed at
users who use modem connections to get their mail, and who are charged
for the connection time.  In this case it makes much more sense to
grab it and read/respond off-line rather than tie up the line for
extended periods of time.

Bill
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		-- Robert Heinlein

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From: "Brian P. Hampson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 08:41:57 -0700 (PDT)

> remote-access E-mail protocol crown, but POP appears to have won, at

I read this too, and was surprised.  Especially since almost every guide 
to the internet talks about using PINE for mail.  It seems strange that 
the PC people can't develop good IMAP clients, or that OST seems to think 
that IMAP is not popular....

B.

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From: [email-masked] (Michael S. Robinson)
Date: 28 Jul 1994 21:22:54 GMT

: > 
: > "At one time, IMAP was a serious <unreadable word> against POP for the
: > remote-access E-mail protocol crown, but POP appears to have won, at
: > least for now."
: > 

: I read this too, and was surprised.  Especially since almost every guide 
: to the internet talks about using PINE for mail.  It seems strange that 
: the PC people can't develop good IMAP clients, or that OST seems to think 
: that IMAP is not popular....

I think the reason you're seeing this is a change in the point of reference.
You are correct that every guide to the internet mentions PINE or ELM for
mail.  However, there is a huge trend towards having central servers
with many clients around thme (gee, a LAN maybe?).  Anyways, POP has one
great advantage for a client/server set-up:  It goes out, does what it needs
to do, then closes up shop.  This cuts down greatly on any unnecessary network
traffic.  It's also less overhead for the client system.  Every little bit helps.  

Of course, I like IMAP better and wish it would be the reigning champ.  But
POP provides better functionality for remote PC-based clients.

Mike

--
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
Mike Robinson                     [email-masked]
I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather,
not screaming in terror, like his passengers.

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From: [email-masked] (Jason Haar)
Date: 29 Jul 1994 10:32:28 GMT

Michael S. Robinson ([email-masked]) wrote:

: I think the reason you're seeing this is a change in the point of reference.
: You are correct that every guide to the internet mentions PINE or ELM for
: mail.  However, there is a huge trend towards having central servers
: with many clients around thme (gee, a LAN maybe?).  Anyways, POP has one
: great advantage for a client/server set-up:  It goes out, does what it needs
: to do, then closes up shop.  This cuts down greatly on any unnecessary network
: traffic.  It's also less overhead for the client system.  Every little bit helps.  

?? Are you saying that IMAP can't do that?

As far as I remember - IMAP could be used as a complete POP replacement - 
you could GET all messages onto your local system and then DELETE them 
off the server - Ta Da!!

IMAP of course offers so much more - how does POP handle users who use a 
different PC/Mac from day-to-day? (they'd end up with bits of their mail 
spread of several systems). Keeping all folders on the server AS AN 
OPTION gets rid of that problem. We have people who travel from site to 
site regularly, using different equipment for their mail reading, so POP 
is no good for them - IMAP would work a champ (if commercial mailers 
supported it :-} ).

 --

Cheers,

Jason
+------------------------------+------------------------------------------+
| Jason Haar, European SysAdmin   Phone: + 44 (256) 790111                |
| Motorola Cellular Subscriber      Fax: + 44 (256) 790519                |
| Basingstoke, Hampshire                                                  |
| RG24 0GY,  ENGLAND           Internet: [email-masked] |
+------------------------------+------------------------------------------+

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From: Jack Churchill <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 17:45:17 +1000 (EST)

> is no good for them - IMAP would work a champ (if commercial mailers 

I used to think this way too.  However, the trend these days is to force
users to perform their own housekeeping and thus relieve the pressure on
the central server.  Consequently, the difference between IMAP and POP
becomes irrelevant.  However, I do have some users who like to read their
mail from different platforms as you described.  IMAP would be better in
this case but what if such people only do it very occasionally?  Also,
what if existing users who get all their mail moved to their desktop
suddenly decide to use another for only a short time? This is regardless
of whether they use POP or IMAP since both can move all mail as you
mentioned.  Both also can leave mail on the server (POP relies on the mail
client to do it though).  So, the debate is not really which is better,
POP or IMAP.  The real question is how to solve the occasional mobile user
without forcing everyone's mail to stay on the central server?  If there
is no way then once must use the central server approach (with huge disks
to hold multi-media attachments, etc.). 

--
  Jack N. Churchill                         | [email-masked]
  CSIRO  Division of Exploration and Mining |
  PO Box 136  North Ryde  NSW  2113         | Phone:  +61 2 887 8884
  Australia                                 | Fax:    +61 2 887 8921

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From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 09:02:36 -0700 (PDT)

Jack,
I actually disagree that "the trend these days" is toward POP's
fetch-and-delete model in order to keep mail off of a central server.  For
a growing number of folks, the "value-added" requirement for access from
multiple computers makes POP a showstopper.  (And of course as was 
mentioned, IMAP can do "fetch-and-delete" as well.)

But your response to Jason also implies something that I believe is a common 
misconception, namely that IMAP == Central.

There are two distinct issues here:

 1. At what level of an organization should mail data be stored?
    Possible answers include: central/organization-wide, departmental,
    workgroup, or desktop.

 2. Once you decide *where* the mail data lives, you must decide which
    protocol to use to access it.  Possible answers include: POP, IMAP,
    NFS, SMB, AFS, AFP, etc.

Within its design center, IMAP offers technical advantages over all the 
others.  In comparison to POP, I'll just mention the following:

 o Access to a mail store from multiple computers.
 o Ability to selectively fetch individual MIME body parts.
 o Ability to access multiple remote folders, not just INBOX.
 o Ability to support disconnected operation.

For us, access from multiple computers is sufficient reason to favor 
IMAP, as a large and growing part of our population wants access to the 
same inbox from their office desktop, their machine at home, their laptop 
while in a hotel, and sometimes from their lab computer.  

For people who connect via low-speed lines, the ability to see the 2KB
text part of a message and ignore the 2MB core dump or image file 
attached to it is a *big* deal.

And the support for disconnected operation built into the IMAP4 spec 
seems to be what has attracted several major computer vendors to IMAP.
(And no, I can't pre-announce any products for them.)

So I don't think that the question is how to support the occassional
mobile user.  For us, that's just about everyone.  The questions are: 
whether to provide a central value-added service that has superior
functionality, or moving the mail-server function closer to the user,
but still using IMAP to get at it from other machines.  By the way, there 
is no technical reason why you can't run IMAP and POP daemons on the same 
server, so that both constituencies can be happy.  We don't run POP 
centrally because that implies Client Services must support yet another 
family of user agents, but that's not a technical issue...

Obviously any central mail service must worry about disk usage.  On
campus-wide machines, we use quotas.  On departmental IMAP servers, we
don't bother.  Baylor and other sites expire mail on the central server
after a certain length of time.  MUA design can influence this as well.
Pine has an option to move mail you've already read from your inbox to a
folder on your own disk, for example.  So I think the tools exist to offer
a full-function (IMAP) mail service without losing your shirt on disk
costs. 

-teg

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From: Jim Stone <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 14:18:19 -0400 (EDT)

> a full-function (IMAP) mail service without losing your shirt on disk

Expiring old mail is an issue that I have been wondering about for some
time.  We have only been using mail on my server for a few months, so
large volumes of unread mail have not yet become an issue, but there are a
number of very inactive accounts here that could accumulate significant
numbers of unread messages as time goes by.  What kinds of programs are
available that would perform automated deletion of old mail from Unix mail
inboxes? 

Respond privately or on the list if you feel it would be useful.  Thanks! 

jim
-------------------------------------------:::::---------------------------
  "as long as the music's loud enough,     :::::  Jim Stone
  we won't hear the world falling apart."  :::::  Smithsonian Institution
  -derek jarman, "jubilee"                 :::::  [email-masked]
-------------------------------------------:::::---------------------------

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From: Steve Mann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 23:15:17 -0400 (EDT)

Hi,
	In reponse to your message about mail being deleted, there is a 
program called mailclean that comes with something called mailsize that 
will do the trick for you. I am sorry to say that I do not remember where 
I got it from, but Archie should be kind enough to let you in on the 
secret. I just installed it on our system and all seems to be going well. 
Hope this helps. 

Steve

"If you choose not to decide, you'll still have made a choice..."
					      -RUSH
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From: Jack Churchill <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 15:51:39 +1000 (EST)

> misconception, namely that IMAP == Central.

No, if you can read English you would have noticed I've said POP doesn't
stand in the way for some sites to leave the mail on the server (e.g.,
Eudora is a POP mail client that has the option to leave mail on the
server).  I'll admit they do it differently and IMAP is more sophisticated
to the extent that the folders are left on the server.  I get around this
problem with Eudora by using disk sharing with a workgroup PC or the unix
server itself.  I know this increases network traffic but our mail traffic
is the least of our problems. 

>     protocol to use to access it.  Possible answers include: POP, IMAP,

Obviously your and my priorities are different.  My preference is to make
the users happy with the most suitable mail client I can find for our
environment with the method of mail transfer and storage a second priority.

I run both IMAP and POP.  One of the reasons I installed IMAP was to test
the PC version of pine.  I eventually gave up on it and used commercial
PCEduora since it was far better, supported uuencode, binhex and MIME,
handled attachments much better, etc.  Yet is uses the POP method and
haven't regretted using it ever since despite the limitations for mobile
users.

Having said that, I've always believed IMAP is the way to go and I'm happy
to see it used by all mailers.  I'll be glad if Eudora gave the option to
use IMAP.  That way I can stop using disk sharing for some users which
currently puts their folders back onto a server anyway.

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From: [email-masked] (Michael Castle)
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 17:17:41 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
>: > remote-access E-mail protocol crown, but POP appears to have won, at

I thought the reason POP was used so much more was simply because
it had been around longer; not because of any great technological
advantage.

>POP provides better functionality for remote PC-based clients.

Isn't IMAP capable of doing the same thing as POP?  Namely dl all
the mail, then read it locally?  Or is it that the implementation
of IMAP in PINE doesn't let you configure it to do that?

mrc
-- 
Mike Castle .-=NEXUS=-.  Life is like a clock:  You can work constantly
  [email-masked]     and be right all the time, or not work at all
   [email-masked]       and be right at least twice a day.  -- mrc
    We are all of us living in the shadow of Manhattan.  -- Watchmen

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From: [email-masked] (Bill Campbell)
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 10:41:44 -0700 (PDT)

> it had been around longer; not because of any great technological
I think this whole argument is a bit ridiculous!  POP and IMAP server
two different needs, and are not mutually exclusive.  POP is better for
cases where connection bandwidth is limited and/or expensive while
IMAP has significant advantages when a connection is available.  It's
a case of the right tool for the job.  I imagine that the majority of PCs
aren't connected to servers capable of supporting IMAP so people
writing Windows mailers would naturally support a protocol that fit
the majority of their clients.

Wouldn't it make sense for someone to make PCPINE work as a POP
client?  This shouldn't be that difficult.  I'm not very familiar with
DOS/Windows mailers and am not impressed much with those I've used,
but I do know that the Eudora mail client that's bundled with Locus
PC-Interface plus has a program that will dial into a Unix system and
handle the mail transfers by telnet'ing into the POP server to grab
the mail.  I haven't looked at the scripts involved, but it shouldn't
be too difficult to implement.  Then PCPINE could just use the local
mailbox.  This same technique could also be used on Unix systems that
are not connected directly to an IMAP server machine or to get
mailboxes from remote systems.

Rather than argue which is the ``better'' technology, why not spend
the effort to support both and to promote IMAP capabilities on other
Mail User Agents?

Bill

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From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 11:55:02 -0700 (PDT)

On Sun, 31 Jul 1994, Bill Campbell wrote:

> client?  

Bill,
In the future Pine will support the "fetch-and-delete" (offline) model,
via IMAP, and quite probably via POP as well.  Later we hope to support
full disconnected operation via IMAP4, wherein the state of a client
message cache can be resynchronized with the server state. 

-teg