[Dovecot] Configuration file changes in CVS

[Mark E. Mallett]

On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 05:52:08PM +0300, Timo Sirainen wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-07-10 at 16:20, Matthias Andree wrote:
> > > Or what if you want Maildir INBOX and mbox others? Maildir would support
> > > subfolders, so you'd have to include it in the namespace reply at least
> > > if it's hierarchy separator is different than with the mboxes.
> > 
> > No-one's supposed to use mbox. Optimize as much as you want, it just
> > doesn't scale at all.
> 
> mbox is fine as long as you don't want to delete messages. It's perfect
> for read-only mailing list archives.

Indeed.  mbox is fine for some people and some things, and in fact
for archived mboxes Maildir can just be a big waste.

It is nice to be open to well-established storage formats.  Bear in
mind that there are people who refuse to use Maildir formats too.

On this whole storage/namespace/search-path thing-- wouldn't it be nice
if various imap/pop server implementations could settle on some
standard ways of dealing with things?  Certainly not the same
techniques, but the same effects and terms and storage layouts --
making it possible to switch between various implementations.  There
always seem to be confusions and incompatibilities regarding various
implementation details:

Namespace:  even how to *talk* about namespace across various
implementations can be confusing, let alone the fact that namespace
conventions do not necessarily translate into file naming conventions
(which is proper- but I'm just saying it adds to the confusion when
discussing it).

Filesystem layout:  for example a big bugaboo is that once you choose
a Maildir as your primary mailbox (in a Maildir++ -like world), you're
locked in there.  Plenty of users already have their own idea of where
they'd like their folders to be, and in what format (some maildir,
some mbox), and it's just not reasonable to expect them to give that
up.  It ought to be possible to easily mix and match collections of
Maildir, Maildir++, and mbox formats throughout a users' home space
(and elsewhere, if allowed).  Over in binciland there is the notion of
an IMAPdir which addresses some of this although I don't think it's
perfect.  (I believe Andreas is here too..)

Implementation of quotas, shared folders, bulletins, etc.  

Anyway-- a little cross-pollenization of ideas could help here.

mm