Subject: Common mail groupware software

From: [email-masked] (Steve Davidson)
Date: Sat, 5 Aug 1995 05:30:21 GMT

Can someone please direct me to MAIL or MESSAGING software
that allows a group of people to share a single mail queue.

I'd need simple message locking so that when one person is
read/responding to mail, others see the lock and cannot respond
to the same message.

Freeware or commercial software will do.

Thank you.

              --------======= * =======--------
                       Steven Davidson
                     [email-masked]

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From: Sven Guckes <[email-masked]>
Date: 11 Aug 95 17:36:57 GMT

[email-masked] (Steve Davidson) writes:
>I'd need simple message locking so that when one person is read/responding
>to mail, others see the lock and cannot respond to the same message.

"Locking" is so non-trivial that I suggest to either set up a mailing list
or create a local newsgroup.  You could also make the mail folder available
as a web page but then everybody *could* read it.  Oh, well.
Anyway, if you're only *reading* from the same folder then there should be no
problem.  YOu only need locking if new mail will be put into the folder.

Sven

Cc: [email-masked] (Steve Davidson)

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From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 1995 15:58:03 -0700 (PDT)

Steve, Sven:

I don't know of any mail software that prevents replies to messages
currently being viewed or replied-to, however, it is possible to quickly
notify others that a message has been replied-to or deleted by using a
mailbox format that permits concurrent updates of message status flags.
If you combine such a mailbox format with an IMAP daemon, you can make
changes in message status visible to all the concurrent users, on
potentially different platforms.  There is still a potential race
condition where two people can begin replying to the same message nearly
simultaneously, but it is still much better than having no idea what the
other people are doing.

Concurrent access to a mailbox by multiple users is one of the strenghths
of IMAP, but you have to use a mailbox format that is amenable to this
functionality.  In addition, you could consider modifying an IMAP client
to use IMAP message flags in a way that would simulate advisory locking
for purposes of a Reply function.

Either the Cyrus IMAP server from CMU or the UW IMAP server using TENEX
format mailboxes will fill the bill (although the TENEX format prohibits
expunging unless there is only one user, but flag --message status--
updates, e.g. Deleted or Answered, may be made by multiple users
concurrently, and IMAPd will notify every user agent of any changes.)

Putting the locking burden on imapd allows you to use any IMAP clients on
any platforms.  Alternatively, you can have everyone run Pine on a single
machine and again use TENEX as the mailbox format.

-teg