Subject: email over webDAV as IMAP replacement?

From: robert burrell donkin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 21:35:21 +0100

i'm interested in associating meta-data with emails stored in a central
repository accessible from multiple clients. on day i'd like to be able
to share my mails and meta-data over the internet.

but this is brings me to IMAP. as a developer, IMAP sucks. IMAP really
sucks. IMAP *really* sucks for so many reasons.

it's a big, complex, obscure protocol. good secure server
implementations are tough to code available only in a limit number of
languages. it does too much. it's just not safely hackable. 

webDAV is cool. it's a modern hackable mashable protocol. running over
http means security, scalability, caching and mirroring can be left to
httpd. this is great if i want to share my email archives and meta-data
over the internet. protocols have been successfully layered on top of it
(subversion, calDAV for example). it strikes me as a good match for an
IMAP alternative whose strength is read only performance and associating
meta-data with emails. 

has it been done before? is this just a crazy idea? 

tell me why it won't work!

- robert

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From: Wilfredo Sánchez Vega <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 10:37:34 -0700

Jim Whitehead has in the past suggested that looking into this may  
be a good idea, but I don't think anyone has picked it up and run  
with it yet.  Seems to me like it might be interesting to try putting  
something together; go for it!

   Subversion isn't a good example, by the way; it basically  
shoehorns it's needs into existing DAV specs rather than coming up  
with something new, but CalDAV is a good example.

	-wsv

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 20:18:09 +0200

robert burrell donkin schrieb:
> ...

It think this is what Hotmail and/or Outlook WebAccess are doing.

> ...

I won't, because it would :-)

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From: robert burrell donkin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 23:31:47 +0100

> something together; go for it!

great :-)

what's the best way to start? (other than hacking an implementation ;-)

is this subject on topic for this list?

anything much out there i should read?

> with something new, but CalDAV is a good example.

good. i attended Lisa Dusseault's session at apachecon and that the
reason why i started looking at webDAV as a solution to one of the parts
missing from my jigsaw.

- robert

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From: Wilfredo Sánchez Vega <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 16:55:04 -0700

Well, a prototype implementation may be the way to go.  The useful  
thing if you're looking to share ideas for a protocol is to document  
some ideas of what's needed beyond what WebDAV offers, and suggest  
some options.

	-wsv