RFC: HTTP based storage API

[Nagy, Attila]

On 02/08/16 11:16, Timo Sirainen wrote:
>> 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.
>
Yeah, the opposite, in this case a jmap backend to Dovecot.
BTW, I think jmap is too high level and implementing a jmap server is 
very much like implementing an IMAP one.

I much more think of a pluggable, easy (remote) storage API, which has 
much less to do with IMAP, but can offer capabilities, which can help 
Dovecot (like the search and indexes).