Subject: Notes from IMAP BOF 3/31/93 (Columbus IETF)

From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1993 22:30:55 -0700 (PDT)

1. Attendance:  
   16 people came (5 others expressed regret that they couldn't make it.)
   13 asked to be added to the IMAP email list.
    7 planned to attend the Amsterdam IETF.

2. Agenda:
   -Introductions
   -Draft WG Charter
   -Discussion

3. Results:

There was general agreement that the focus of the proposed working group 
should be to refine and extend the existing IMAP2/IMAP2bis protocol, 
hopefully without breaking the installed base of IMAP2-capable software.

The wording of the proposed WG charter was deemed generally acceptable.

A list of desired IMAP extensions was made.  Many of the proposed features
appear to be within the scope of the CMU IMSP (Interactive Mail Support
Protocol) project, rather than IMAP.  Also, some are likely to be
incompatible with current software. 

It was clear that disconnected operation, ala DMSP/PC-Mail, was a very 
high priority.

4. Wish list:

-Support for disconnected operation
-Offline sorting of mailbox
-Background server searching and sorting
-Shared mailbox per-user state (like a .newsrc, but for mailboxes)
-Function to determine where to submit messages
-Storage/retrieval of MUA configuration data
-Minimal non-plaintext authentication
-Minimal confidentiality (XOR with shared secret)
-Test assertion that PEM does not affect IMAP
-Remote printing (from IMAP server's copy of msg)
-Improved searching

5. Next steps:

The proposed WG charter, with minor modifications, will soon be submitted
to the IETF application area directors for endorsement and forwarding to
IESG for approval of the WG. 

The wish list will be combined with other input and categorized according 
to scope, compatibility, etc.

6. References

Mailing list:  [email-masked]
To subscribe:  [email-masked]

IMAP2: RFC-1176
IMAP2bis extensions: /imap/imap2bis.txt on ftp.cac.washington.edu

-teg