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JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

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Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#41

Post by mathnmusic »

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?

> Who are they going to pay?

The sender pays the reader. If the reader is the one deriving the value from this communication, they would pay the sender out of band as compensation.

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#42

Post by billpg »

akvadrako wrote: post #33
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.

It has been a long time since I looked at IMAP. Are servers that do this now commonplace? (None I could find used to.)

Can I know from a capability exchange if the remote server will send emails after adding to the "Outbox" folder?

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#43

Post by detaro »

mathnmusic wrote: post #41
efdee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Who are they going to pay? The sender pays the reader. If the reader is the one deriving the value from this communication, they would pay the sender out of band as compensation.

So what does a reliable, not centralized payment system that is viable for this volume of tiny transactions that everyone can use look like? That's IMHO the big problem with all these suggestions.

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#44

Post by bjoli »

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?

Most bigger services are probably going to send and receive about the same amount of mail so it will be an almost zero-sum game. Most services today have a cap on how mail you can send, and this could be made more explicit and have cases where the end user actually pay.

I don't really see the payment as a big problem. This has been discussed previously, mostly initiated by the big email services

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#45

Post by Semaphor »

bad_user wrote: post #40

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 i…

> Also from what I understand JMAP should be friendly for mobile usage.

I read the FM blogs and I remember them mentioning that low battery consumption was one of the design goals.

The JMAP site [0] has:

> JMAP is designed to make efficient use of limited network resources. Multiple API calls may be batched in a single request to the server, reducing round trips and improving battery life on mobile devices.

[0]: https://jmap.io/spec-core.html

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#46

Post by mschuster91 »

From experience, Exchange's Outlook API ("EWS") is pretty decent. It's XML-SOAP, sure, but there are libraries for it that can be readily used. The only thing they did fuck up is the three different kinds of IDs for an object (esp. confusing when accessing delegated team mailboxes/calendar events) but once you get it how it works, it's straightforward and allows you access to anything from email over calendar to address-book.

I just do not know if EWS is an "open standard" that could be replicated by a third party server or if it is only "open documentation" and licensed for Exchange only :(

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#47

Post by tjoff »

akvadrako wrote: post #33
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.

And update all clients everywhere so that they are compatible with the new IMAP server.

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#48

Post by bjoli »

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

I don't see why you are getting downvoted. Proof of work is a great way to limit spam. It could be made almost unnoticeable by the end user sending a couple of messages, but expensive for spam. There are of course some show stoppers (mailing list, non-profits etc), but it is not a bad solution.

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#49

Post by bjoli »

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.

Depending on the workload it will be a marginal load, and getting rid of spam would be a pretty big gain.

Re: JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really

#50

Post by vidarh »

pjmlp wrote: post #36
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.

But we do. The "re-inventions" just tends to be increasingly subtle, because the high level structure continues to make sense and the overall designs are simple to begin with, which makes it hard to come up with revolutionary new ideas in the space.

Umbrella's for example see continuous evolution in means of making better fully collapsible versions, making the deployment more automated, reducing weight, etc.

From Wikipedia, illustrating both that there's continued substantial effort in coming up with new ideas, and at the same time that it is hard to come up with something genuinely new:

> Umbrellas continue to be actively developed. In the US, so many umbrella-related patents are being filed that the U.S. Patent Office employs four full-time examiners to assess them. As of 2008, the office registered 3000 active patents on umbrella-related inventions. Nonetheless, Totes, the largest American umbrella producer, has stopped accepting unsolicited proposals. Its director of umbrella development was reported as saying that while umbrellas are so ordinary that everyone thinks about them, "it's difficult to come up with an umbrella idea that hasn’t already been done."[36]

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella)

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