[Dovecot] Re: (no subject)

[John Peacock]

Geo Carncross wrote:
> I happen find that to be about as easy as searching for anything else in
> Thunderbird.

That's not a positive affirmation.  I could easily say look for a 
message by searching for a Received header that looks like this:

Received: from [193.129.90.57] (193-129-90-57.bdmedia.co.uk [193.129.90.57])
	by pop.bdmedia.net (8.12.3/8.12.3/Debian-6.6) with ESMTP id
	j2FEbTX9013497
	for <dovecot at dovecot.org>; Tue, 15 Mar 2005 14:37:30 GMT

which is just as unique, and just as unsupported by mail clients.

> FWIW: Outlook and Outlook Express can also search Message-IDs. So can
> grep.

Yes, but since Outlook 2003, the Outlook client doesn't even _set_ a 
Message-ID at all and it relies on the SMTP or POP server to add one. 
And not all SMTP servers set a Message-ID, because you'll find out in 
RFC-2822 that Message-ID is an _optional_ field.  There is a very 
important difference between "widely supported" and "part of a ratified 
standard."

Until such time as Message-ID's are supported by mail clients as a 
builtin feature (in the canonical URL form <mid:12345blah at example.com> 
probably, see RFC-1111), they will continue to be useless to _me_ 
personally, and I believe the vast majority of users.  I'm done with 
this conversation.

John

-- 
John Peacock
Director of Information Research and Technology
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
4501 Forbes Boulevard
Suite H
Lanham, MD  20706
301-459-3366 x.5010
fax 301-429-5748