[Dovecot] Idea: POP3 deletion as a flag

[Axel Luttgens]

Le 6 mai 2013 à 01:59, Noel Butler a écrit :

> On Sat, 2013-05-04 at 05:29 -0700, Professa Dementia wrote:
> 
>> [...]
>> and enabling this option makes the server non-compliant.  The section 
>> under "The UPDATE State" is clear about the behavior of the server:
>> 
>> "The POP3 server removes all messages marked as deleted from the maildrop"
>> 
> 
> 
> Did you read what I actually said? and in your quotation you have even
> verified it, RFC's are very clear about compliance instructions,  by use
> of the words  SHOULD, MUST, MUST NOT  ... etc 
> 
> There is no such word in the RFC relating to deleting marked deleted
> messages, as you have also even quoted, therefore, Timo's proposed flags
> do not breach compliancy.

Hmmm...
Let's consider the RFC's part related to, for example, the TOP command:

	If the POP3 server issues a positive response, then the
	response given is multi-line.  After the initial +OK, the
	POP3 server sends the headers of the message, the blank
	line separating the headers from the body, and then the
	number of lines of the indicated message's body, being
	careful to byte-stuff the termination character (as with
	all multi-line responses).

So, no MUST keyword there.
Would this mean that a server sending garbage after a positive response is a compliant one?


> [...]
> I can not understand why you are so outraged by this, if you feel so
> strongly, just don't enable the option,  or is that too simple...

Don't know whether Dem felt outraged, but it could well be that Timo's proposal came with a context making the risk of being non-compliant more obvious: it could have been understood as requiring a POP user to check with an IMAP client for the effective deletion of messages, even if that user already has explicitly required the deletion through the POP protocol.

There's something more ambiguous than, say, an mis-configured server with [sm]dbox yet without periodic purge.

Axel