On Mon, 17 Feb 2003, Andreas Aardal Hanssen wrote:
It even recently included a POP server. What's the reasoning there? Someone wanted it so it'd be easy to run both POP3 and IMAP servers without having to configure them twice. I don't see any harm in it anyway, it took only few hours to write, it's optional and doesn't take much space in sources.
Here's where I would say - there are hundreds of working POP3 servers around, both in closed and open source, so adding a POP3 server to the Dovecot project just introduces more lines of code where bugs may appear ;).
Here is what -I- would say:
I use mbox on all my servers which I have absolutely no intention of changing despite the issues concerning file locking inherent in the whole mbox format. So please, --NO-- attempts to convince me to go to maildir.
My take is that if I am going to use an IMAP server, it would be VERY nice if a POP3 server also came bundled with it. Dovecot's having both IMAP and POP3 servers is great because they will likely use the same file-locking schemes (in fact, probably even share the same locking settings).
That way if I inadvertently start up a POP3 session while I am connected via IMAP, if they use identical locking mechanisms, I don't screw up my mailboxes should I inadvertently tell my system that I want to delete the messages from my mailbox.
Basically, if you open via IMAP using a server with a diffent locking scheme while your hung POP3 session is still running AND you modify your mailbox, you are screwed. Especially if that mailstore is NFS-shared, which is always a dicey proposition.
Additionally, the number of mbox POP3 servers which Do Not Suck(R) is rather low right now. Timo finally introduced an mbox IMAP server which definitely Does Not Suck, notably it allows for multiple clients accessing the same mbox mailstore, something previously only offered by Cyrus and perhaps maildir ("perhaps" only because I do not use maildir).
Not to mention, quite frankly, most mbox POP3 implementations suck pretty badly anyway. :P
--Ian.