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Ten Years of JMAP

fastmail.com

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Re: Ten Years of JMAP

#21

Post by Freak_NL »

AnonC wrote: post #14

I get that this is a huge effort and that it takes a long time for protocol adoption (especially if the big companies aren’t behind it). I don’t know why Fastmail has developed mobile apps but no desktop applications so far. One justification could be higher usage on mobile, but it still leaves desktop users out (of JMAP). Without more email clients supporting it, mail providers don’t have any incentive to support JM…

If JMAP is to be successful, having support in Thunderbird is a must have first step. It's not helpful if the same party that provides the mail service provides the frontend as well. In that case you might as well leave out the open protocol and just push the browser-based client.

I like Fastmail and use it because it provides a service, and does so well (which includes support you can actually reach out to and talk to a human who will actually help you). I also like that my identity and daily e-mail experience is in no way hard-linked to them. I have my own domain, and I use Thunderbird and K9-Mail (now also Thunderbird).

I also like that I can log onto to their website and do things there if needed. This is mostly managing masked e-mail addresses and the occasional check on my subscription settings.

Re: Ten Years of JMAP

#22

Post by rawkode »

I really wanted JMAP to work, but FastMail can't innovate on a protocol level while providing a stale and boring product.

They need to motivate people to use FastMail to boost JMAP adoption and they've failed to do that for a decade.

They post their 12 days of Christmas blog every year and never a new feature to be found.

If you can't add shiny features to your service with a new shiny protocol that promises to break down silos, then it doesn't stand a chance.

What will replace IMAP will be what changes email forever, and we've not seen that yet in an open protocol.

We should revisit Google / Apache Wave

Re: Ten Years of JMAP

#23

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

jeltz wrote: post #17
hyhconito wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more: we have two clusterfucks now thus might as well use the one we know best. At least no one tried to use YAML on the wire, so far anyway.

And that one is JMAP. IMAP is such a huge clusterfuck it is almost impossible to beat it.

IMAP is simple and elegant and not a "clusterfuck" at all.

(Source: implemented both serverside and clientside IMAP.)

IMAP is basically a database query language and as such it works as it should.

Re: Ten Years of JMAP

#24

Post by pas »

mort96 wrote: post #20
CuriousSkeptic wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt JMAP is superior for the problem it solves. I wonder if it will matter in the end though. I have the impression MS is positioning it self to be the only viable AI platform where mail and calendars are just a tiny part of that. So while not really competing in the same domain it may be that both IMAP and JMAP may feel as relevant to the world as IRC or XMPP in the not too distant future.

I am more than happy to not use an "AI platform" for my e-mail and calendar!

Sure, and we're the vocal (?) minority here. The SOHO/corporate/family world will uncritically use whatever shit MS regurgitates for them for all the usual reasons.

Re: Ten Years of JMAP

#25

Post by ghjfrdghibt »

rawkode wrote: post #22

I really wanted JMAP to work, but FastMail can't innovate on a protocol level while providing a stale and boring product. They need to motivate people to use FastMail to boost JMAP adoption and they've failed to do that for a decade. They post their 12 days of Christmas blog every year and never a new feature to be found. If you can't add shiny features to your service with a new shiny protocol that promises to break…

I don't get your point. Fastmail provide, foremost, an email service. Boring is good here. Exciting and shiny I don't need.

Re: Ten Years of JMAP

#26

Post by rawkode »

ghjfrdghibt wrote: post #25
rawkode wrote: post #22

I really wanted JMAP to work, but FastMail can't innovate on a protocol level while providing a stale and boring product. They need to motivate people to use FastMail to boost JMAP adoption and they've failed to do that for a decade. They post their 12 days of Christmas blog every year and never a new feature to be found. If you can't add shiny features to your service with a new shiny protocol that promises to break…

I don't get your point. Fastmail provide, foremost, an email service. Boring is good here. Exciting and shiny I don't need.

Then you are also fine with IMAP. No new protocol needed.

Re: Ten Years of JMAP

#27

Post by chillfox »

rawkode wrote: post #22

I really wanted JMAP to work, but FastMail can't innovate on a protocol level while providing a stale and boring product. They need to motivate people to use FastMail to boost JMAP adoption and they've failed to do that for a decade. They post their 12 days of Christmas blog every year and never a new feature to be found. If you can't add shiny features to your service with a new shiny protocol that promises to break…

As one of their customers, I really appreciate that they don't upend everything all the time with pointless features.

Constantly reinventing things and piling on pointless features is one of the things I dislike most about Google, their chat solution is especially egregious for this. It only causes frustration and increases the time investment required to be proficient with the products.

Re: Ten Years of JMAP

#29

Post by chillfox »

rawkode wrote: post #26
ghjfrdghibt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get your point. Fastmail provide, foremost, an email service. Boring is good here. Exciting and shiny I don't need.

Then you are also fine with IMAP. No new protocol needed.

Nope, IMAP can't provide the kind of smooth reliable experience that the Fastmail mobile app provides. Now they obviously could have done it in many different ways, but I know from experience with IMAP that it can't do it.

The amount of times IMAP has resulted in duplicate emails when moving mail between folders for me is enough that I eventually gave up on attempting any kind of organization back when I was last using it.

Re: Ten Years of JMAP

#30

Post by rawkode »

chillfox wrote: post #27
rawkode wrote: post #22

I really wanted JMAP to work, but FastMail can't innovate on a protocol level while providing a stale and boring product. They need to motivate people to use FastMail to boost JMAP adoption and they've failed to do that for a decade. They post their 12 days of Christmas blog every year and never a new feature to be found. If you can't add shiny features to your service with a new shiny protocol that promises to break…

As one of their customers, I really appreciate that they don't upend everything all the time with pointless features. Constantly reinventing things and piling on pointless features is one of the things I dislike most about Google, their chat solution is especially egregious for this. It only causes frustration and increases the time investment required to be proficient with the products.

They don't need a new protocol to deliver a stable and sufficient product for their customers, I agree.

I'm suggesting that a new protocol needs hype for adoption and reinventing email needs new capabilities

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