4 ms·

JMAP is literally the only positive thing that has happened to email in decades, please don't dismiss it (or do you know of anything else in the works that has

by tjoff 7y ago

JMAP is literally the only positive thing that has happened to email in decades, please don't dismiss it (or do you know of anything else in the works that has any chance of success?). HTTP and JSON are such an insignificant price to pay for the sliver of hope that email can be saved and not being in complete control of google et al.

asjo 7y ago
> HTTP and JSON are such an insignificant price to pay for the sliver of hope that email can be saved and not being in complete control of google et al. How would JMAP accomplish that, in a way that other protocols don't?
- tjoff 7y ago
  The shortcomings of IMAP and POP are reflected in all mail clients and is a large part in what has made webmail so popular. Another reason is that webmail vendors of today typically deliver a subpar IMAP/POP experience. So combining a native client and webmail when on the go is rarely ideal. JMAP is the first chance in a long time to get a decent experience that doesn't involve an expert and (even if you are willing to put in the time) tons of compromises. And aside from all that we have an opportunity and reason to revive native clients that has gone stagnant (which is pretty much all of them).
  - u801e 7y ago
    > The shortcomings of IMAP and POP are reflected in all mail clients and is a large part in what has made webmail so popular. Could you elaborate on this? I personally find using a mail client like Thunderbird to access my mail account far more responsive and seamless compared to using the webmail interface. If I don't have much bandwidth to work with, the local mail client using IMAP and SMTP will work while the webmail client will experience timeouts.
    - tjoff 7y ago
      So do I. But syncing mail with IMAP isn't good enough and many features of webmail clients do not map to IMAP clients. There are also tons of caveats during configuration so tons of people, rightfully so, don't bother.
    - amaccuish 7y ago
      IMAP is incredibly annoying. To send a message, you send via SMTP and then upload that message to your Sent folder, so it's transferred twice. For some reason the IMAP implementation I use means that when I move a message to a different folder, it uploads the message to the new folder, deletes the original message, and then downloads the message from the new folder. I have no idea if it's my server, client or the spec, but very wasteful and often fucks up.
teknopaul 7y ago
Some interesting work was done on adding prescence and chat to email that im disappointed not to see in jmap. Be great if we could chat to anyone with a name and dns domain instead of being stuck in a silo like facebook.
- diggernet 7y ago
  That would indeed be awesome. Every email server a chat server. But they are not done with JMAP yet, still working on contacts and calendar. Maybe chat could be next.
Tharkun 7y ago
The real positive thing that needs to happen to email, is putting an end to near-monopoly of gmail. Email is great. It's decentralized. You can simply roll your own. You can use whatever client you like. Apparently even using HTTP/JSON. But you can't send mail to anyone using gmail, which is nearly everyone, unless you play by Google's rules. And even then they'll still put you in their spam folder, or just randomly blackhole you without any explanation or recourse. JMAP vs IMAP vs POP is moot as far as I'm concerned. As long as my mail client continues to work, I'm good. If this gains any traction, I'm sure dovecot and the likes will add support for it (if they haven't already). But no amount of protocol fiddling can fix the fundamental issues of email centralization.
- tjoff 7y ago
  That's what I meant. And we need something better than IMAP/POP to have a fighting chance in challenging google. Because without it IMAP will, without doubt, loose market share even more - further cementing the dominance of larger players. That is why protocol fiddling is an essential part of it. Not enough, but without something better than IMAP might as well give up yesterday (as most already have done).
  - Tharkun 7y ago
    > we need something better than IMAP/POP to have a fighting chance in challenging google How's that? I don't see how messing with IMAP/POP/JMAP will make a difference there. Mail delivery, over SMTP, is what the Gmails and Outlooks of this world are so nasty about. They claim to protect their users from spam, but small mail servers get killed in the crossfire. Mail clients downloading mail over whatever protocol is a trivial problem by comparison, and they have zilch to do with SMTP abuse.
    - tjoff 7y ago
      Yes, but it is all about market share. If 99.9% of all mail originate from gmail+outlook then they can (and will) pretty much ignore the rest. The less dominant they are the more they are forced to be reasonable. JMAP will help diversify the market as well as simplify the process of creating competing products. And has the potential to vastly increase demand for native clients and proper support from webmail vendors. All of the above will work towards lessen the dominance of gmail etc. It isn't anything by itself but I believe it is a requirement going forward. Because IMAP doesn't cut it, so everyone has to create their own crap, which won't be as "good/easy/cheap" as gmail.

by tjoff 7y ago

asjo 7y ago

> HTTP and JSON are such an insignificant price to pay for the sliver of hope that email can be saved and not being in complete control of google et al. How would JMAP accomplish that, in a way that other protocols don't?

tjoff 7y ago
The shortcomings of IMAP and POP are reflected in all mail clients and is a large part in what has made webmail so popular. Another reason is that webmail vendors of today typically deliver a subpar IMAP/POP experience. So combining a native client and webmail when on the go is rarely ideal. JMAP is the first chance in a long time to get a decent experience that doesn't involve an expert and (even if you are willing to put in the time) tons of compromises. And aside from all that we have an opportunity and reason to revive native clients that has gone stagnant (which is pretty much all of them).
- u801e 7y ago
  > The shortcomings of IMAP and POP are reflected in all mail clients and is a large part in what has made webmail so popular. Could you elaborate on this? I personally find using a mail client like Thunderbird to access my mail account far more responsive and seamless compared to using the webmail interface. If I don't have much bandwidth to work with, the local mail client using IMAP and SMTP will work while the webmail client will experience timeouts.
  - tjoff 7y ago
    So do I. But syncing mail with IMAP isn't good enough and many features of webmail clients do not map to IMAP clients. There are also tons of caveats during configuration so tons of people, rightfully so, don't bother.
  - amaccuish 7y ago
    IMAP is incredibly annoying. To send a message, you send via SMTP and then upload that message to your Sent folder, so it's transferred twice. For some reason the IMAP implementation I use means that when I move a message to a different folder, it uploads the message to the new folder, deletes the original message, and then downloads the message from the new folder. I have no idea if it's my server, client or the spec, but very wasteful and often fucks up.

teknopaul 7y ago

Some interesting work was done on adding prescence and chat to email that im disappointed not to see in jmap. Be great if we could chat to anyone with a name and dns domain instead of being stuck in a silo like facebook.

diggernet 7y ago
That would indeed be awesome. Every email server a chat server. But they are not done with JMAP yet, still working on contacts and calendar. Maybe chat could be next.

Tharkun 7y ago

The real positive thing that needs to happen to email, is putting an end to near-monopoly of gmail. Email is great. It's decentralized. You can simply roll your own. You can use whatever client you like. Apparently even using HTTP/JSON. But you can't send mail to anyone using gmail, which is nearly everyone, unless you play by Google's rules. And even then they'll still put you in their spam folder, or just randomly blackhole you without any explanation or recourse. JMAP vs IMAP vs POP is moot as far as I'm concerned. As long as my mail client continues to work, I'm good. If this gains any traction, I'm sure dovecot and the likes will add support for it (if they haven't already). But no amount of protocol fiddling can fix the fundamental issues of email centralization.

tjoff 7y ago
That's what I meant. And we need something better than IMAP/POP to have a fighting chance in challenging google. Because without it IMAP will, without doubt, loose market share even more - further cementing the dominance of larger players. That is why protocol fiddling is an essential part of it. Not enough, but without something better than IMAP might as well give up yesterday (as most already have done).
- Tharkun 7y ago
  > we need something better than IMAP/POP to have a fighting chance in challenging google How's that? I don't see how messing with IMAP/POP/JMAP will make a difference there. Mail delivery, over SMTP, is what the Gmails and Outlooks of this world are so nasty about. They claim to protect their users from spam, but small mail servers get killed in the crossfire. Mail clients downloading mail over whatever protocol is a trivial problem by comparison, and they have zilch to do with SMTP abuse.
  - tjoff 7y ago
    Yes, but it is all about market share. If 99.9% of all mail originate from gmail+outlook then they can (and will) pretty much ignore the rest. The less dominant they are the more they are forced to be reasonable. JMAP will help diversify the market as well as simplify the process of creating competing products. And has the potential to vastly increase demand for native clients and proper support from webmail vendors. All of the above will work towards lessen the dominance of gmail etc. It isn't anything by itself but I believe it is a requirement going forward. Because IMAP doesn't cut it, so everyone has to create their own crap, which won't be as "good/easy/cheap" as gmail.