RFC: HTTP based storage API

[Timo Sirainen]

> On 08 Feb 2016, at 11:59, Timo Sirainen <tss at iki.fi> wrote:
> 
> On 08 Feb 2016, at 11:01, Nagy, Attila <bra at fsn.hu> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Nearly every popular programming language has an LMTP/POP/IMAP implementation, most of them suck in many different ways.
>> I don't know any server or library which provides a well-established, compatible protocol frontend with an open backend API, which could be used to easily make a custom storage backend for the LMTP/POP/IMAP frontend in any language, in any programming paradigm, irregardless of the frontend implementation.
>> 
>> Dovecot is very close to this: it speaks IMAP to the backend, but you still have to make a nearly complete IMAP implementation, which is a PITA.
>> 
>> Therefore I am curious about your opinion: what about an HTTP-based open backend (lib-storage) API to Dovecot?
> 
> We're planning on implementing http://jmap.io/ to Dovecot v2.3. It's close enough to how Dovecot works internally (although we'd still need the threading support) and also at least attempting to become a standard. We haven't really started it yet though, so now would be a good time to give any alternative suggestions or complaints about jmap :)

Oh, you were thinking about ability to provide IMAP/etc support for other random servers, and have Dovecot act as kind of a middleware and translate the requests. Maybe the answer is still jmap though? It would require jmap lib-storage backend similar to imapc, which would be doable, although not really something we're right now planning to implement.