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I intended to ask about actual IMAP bugs. Things that go against the RFCs. Showing the gmail labels as flags would be legal by the protocol (and have some disa

by Arnt 8y ago

I intended to ask about actual IMAP bugs. Things that go against the RFCs. Showing the gmail labels as flags would be legal by the protocol (and have some disadvantages), showing them as mailboxes also legal (and have some other disadvantages), so I don't count that as a bug, it's merely a situation where one has to choose disadvantages. The duplicate notifications are different; the way IMAP is designed the server cannot know which TCP connections originate from the same client. It can guess based on IP address and some other things, and it can know something based on RFC 2971, but 2971 also says explicitly that the server shouldn't do anyhting differently based on that. Which has been discussed in one of the IETF WGs, and the consensus was that the server isn't permitted to suppress probably superfluous notifications. If a client opens two connections, getting rid of duplicate notifications is the client's job. www.rfc-editor.org/search/rfc_search_detail.php?author=gulbrandsen are my RFCs; I actually wrote most of those and gmail implements four of the IMAP-related ones I've written.

lucideer 8y ago
> I don't count that as a bug, it's merely a situation where one has to choose disadvantages. There's no line in the IMAP spec. that very explicitly states "each mail MUST exist in exactly one folder", so you can certainly argue that Gmail technically follows the spec. but the only reason that line doesn't exist is because doing otherwise is so non-sensical as to not have been considered as a possibility. It does for example contain the following line, which Gmail does not follow: "permits manipulation of mailboxes (remote message folders) in a way that is functionally equivalent to local folders", but the fact that line is simply in the abstract and contains no MUST means one can argue it's not prescriptive. There may be disadvantages to using flags instead of mailboxes, but equating their disadvantages is reverse hyperbole. If there was any equivalence, you wouldn't have every major client containing a rake of Gmail-specific code to work around the issue.
- Arnt 8y ago
  I don't see the phrase "MUST exist" anywhere in 3501? I see the word "exactly" in two sentences, neither of which appears to be the one you mean. Can you provide a reference? I don't want to argue about the disadvantages of flags vs. mailboxes. It's a valid subject but I don't want a subject change.
  - Arnt 8y ago
    That was stupid. Should not post while in a noisy environment.

by Arnt 8y ago

lucideer 8y ago

> I don't count that as a bug, it's merely a situation where one has to choose disadvantages. There's no line in the IMAP spec. that very explicitly states "each mail MUST exist in exactly one folder", so you can certainly argue that Gmail technically follows the spec. but the only reason that line doesn't exist is because doing otherwise is so non-sensical as to not have been considered as a possibility. It does for example contain the following line, which Gmail does not follow: "permits manipulation of mailboxes (remote message folders) in a way that is functionally equivalent to local folders", but the fact that line is simply in the abstract and contains no MUST means one can argue it's not prescriptive. There may be disadvantages to using flags instead of mailboxes, but equating their disadvantages is reverse hyperbole. If there was any equivalence, you wouldn't have every major client containing a rake of Gmail-specific code to work around the issue.

Arnt 8y ago
I don't see the phrase "MUST exist" anywhere in 3501? I see the word "exactly" in two sentences, neither of which appears to be the one you mean. Can you provide a reference? I don't want to argue about the disadvantages of flags vs. mailboxes. It's a valid subject but I don't want a subject change.
- Arnt 8y ago
  That was stupid. Should not post while in a noisy environment.