On Thursday, Jul 10, 2003, at 18:48 Europe/Helsinki, Mark E. Mallett wrote:
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?
I wouldn't mind.
Certainly not the same techniques, but the same effects and terms and storage layouts -- making it possible to switch between various implementations.
That's what I've been trying to do, make it as easy as possible to switch to Dovecot :)
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..)
I've thought about implementing IMAPdir-like directory structure before too. I guess it might as well be IMAPdir exactly. IMAPdir-like structure should give users possibility to store the mailboxes in any format anywhere they want by using symlinks. At least that sounds much better to me than having to parse configuration file in user's home directory.