JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really • Hacker News Board

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#31

Post by jasonmunro » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:50 AM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #8

thomasfoster96 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading through the JMAP website [0], I'm actually wondering whether whoever's behind JMAP has looked at GraphQL. There seem to be a lot of similarities (especially the "why not REST" section). [0] https://jmap.io/index.html

I think Fastmail are the primary ones behind JMAP: https://fastmail.blog/2014/12/23/jmap-a-better-way-to-email/

Yep. Also I think they are using it for a subset of customers. While JMAP support in Cypht is still new, so far it's working just like IMAP, but my testing is limited since I just wrote the integration :)

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#32

Post by gsich » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:51 AM UTC

jannes wrote: post #28

gsich wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could pay with computing power. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash

That's horrible for the environment.

Filtering spam mail is too - what's your argument?

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#33

Post by akvadrako » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:55 AM UTC

billpg wrote: post #15

Last time I looked at IMAP, I was a little peeved that servers didn't accept messages added to the "Outbox" folder and send them, instead requiring that clients talk SMTP and then (or not) save a copy of the same message to the "Sent" folder. Could JMAP replace SMTP as well as IMAP?

Why do you think you need a new protocol for this? Instead what you want is a different IMAP server.

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#34

Post by aorth » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:04 AM UTC

Post is about JMAP (Fastmail's IMAP/SMTP replacement), by the author of a newish webmail client called Cypht that has just recently implemented support for JMAP. Cool! Keep going!

https://cypht.org/

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#35

Post by 05 » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:05 AM UTC

gsich wrote: post #26

ggm wrote: post #12

The main failure in mail standards is a lack of explicit utf8 clean support lhs@rhs -if this got fixed (it's often called universal acceptance) a lot of things about mail as an ecology would improve. I have view on the spam thing. The whole "your idea will not work because" meme is hugely destructive of innovation in email. It sucks energy and mindshare. It's classic old timer put down. What would (imnsho opinion) ha…

You could pay with computing power. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash

So, send ten emails and your smartphone battery is dead?

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#36

Post by pjmlp » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:21 AM UTC

hardwaresofton wrote: post #3

I really want to see some innovation in the email space. The landscape is like a sea of false promises and dashed dreams. SMTP is one of the bread-and-butters of the internet, yet it just doesn't seem to be moving forward (maybe that's for the best), and no one's building extensions on top of it. Maybe I'm naive in thinking it was possible but we could have avoided this whole "make an account on X messenger so we can…

Emails are perfectly fine as they are. We also don't keep re-inventing forks, umbrellas, hammers and such.

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#37

Post by lucideer » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:25 AM UTC

amanzi wrote: post #5

hardwaresofton wrote: post #3

I really want to see some innovation in the email space. The landscape is like a sea of false promises and dashed dreams. SMTP is one of the bread-and-butters of the internet, yet it just doesn't seem to be moving forward (maybe that's for the best), and no one's building extensions on top of it. Maybe I'm naive in thinking it was possible but we could have avoided this whole "make an account on X messenger so we can…

"if someone had just jammed XMPP and SMTP together" - wasn't that kind of what Google Wave was aiming for?

Yes. And the vision for Google Wave was great. The execution was just abominably bad (primarily on the frontend/UI side), and Google's failures in execution carried over reputationally to the—now dead—Apache incubator.

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#38

Post by tonyedgecombe » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:25 AM UTC

efdee wrote: post #19

ggm wrote: post #12

The main failure in mail standards is a lack of explicit utf8 clean support lhs@rhs -if this got fixed (it's often called universal acceptance) a lot of things about mail as an ecology would improve. I have view on the spam thing. The whole "your idea will not work because" meme is hugely destructive of innovation in email. It sucks energy and mindshare. It's classic old timer put down. What would (imnsho opinion) ha…

If paying to send email is your suggested solution, I can see why you don't like the meme in question. But the suggestion is rife with problems. How exactly are you going to get everyone to start paying for email, which is free today? If it's a parallel system, how are you going to get people to switch? Who are they going to pay?

If people received credit for incoming mail then the majority wouldn't get a bill as most people receive more than they send.

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#39

Post by detaro » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:25 AM UTC

thomasfoster96 wrote: post #6

andridk wrote: post #2

I was really hoping for a GraphQL API standard for mail before reading this. But this sounds good too.

Reading through the JMAP website [0], I'm actually wondering whether whoever's behind JMAP has looked at GraphQL. There seem to be a lot of similarities (especially the "why not REST" section). [0] https://jmap.io/index.html

Work on JMAP likely started before GraphQL was publicly released.

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#40

Post by bad_user » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:26 AM UTC

FastMail is behind this protocol and from what I've read JMAP has evolved out of their web interface.

I've been a happy customer, even though lately I flirted with going back to GSuite for my personal email, but after a trial realized that Gmail does many things well, except for being a good email service. So I went back to FastMail and renewed for another 2 years.

Seeing this new protocol is exciting, because JMAP is being standardized at IETF. A breath of fresh air to see a new standard being developed.

Also from what I understand JMAP should be friendly for mobile usage. They kept notifications out of it, you're supposed to implement notifications using whatever the mobile platform provides. Interacting via JMAP is via plain HTTP requests, which is super cool.

I can totally see myself implementing a simple email client for automating online services. For example if you implement a commenting system for a website, you might want to do replies by email. That would be a cool project for me to try out.

I wonder if FastMail exposes JMAP publicly yet. Haven't seen any mentions in their admin or docs thus far.