mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) (03/23/90)
Archive-name: imap/22-Mar-90
Original-posting-by: mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin)
Original-subject: Consider IMAP instead of POP
Archive-site: ftphost.cac.washington.edu [128.95.112.1]
Archive-directory: pub
Archive-files: imap.tar.Z
Reposted-by: emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti)
Recently there have been a lot of messages on TCP-IP asking about
POP-based software. There is an alternative to POP, IMAP, described
in RFC-1064. The IMAP protocol is technically superior to POP; it
provides significantly more advanced server functionality (including
server-based RFC-822 parsing and a server-based search engine) which
allows for simpler, yet more powerful, clients.
We've been chary about advertising, since we're actively working on
various IMAP-based tools and don't want people to get the wrong idea
about our software based on incomplete development versions. However,
that doesn't mean that IMAP is vapor; it's been in use at Stanford
University, the University of Washington, NTT, and other organizations
for years.
A beta IMAP distribution is available for anonymous FTP as
pub/imap.tar.Z from Internet host ftphost.CAC.Washington.EDU, IP
address [128.95.112.1]. On Unix, the commands "uncompress imap.tar.Z"
followed by "tar xf imap.tar" will give you an IMAP directory.
This distribution includes:
(1) IMAP client for Xerox Lisp (no further development planned)
(2) IMAP server for DEC-20/TOPS-20 (no further development planned)
(3) IMAP server for BSD Unix (contact yeager@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
for updates; this software is under
active development)
(4) Portable IMAP client library in C, with OS-dependent interfaces
for BSD Unix, TOPS-20, Macintosh, and MS-DOS.
(4a) portable "test" IMAP client
(4b) BSD Unix IMAP client with MM-like interface
(4c) NeXT GUI client in advanced and stripped-down form (contact
me for updates; this software is being
changed daily)
Sources to everything except for (4c) are included. In addition,
Stanford University has developed a Macintosh client; contact
yeager@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU for information on how to obtain a beta
copy. I have been contacted by various individuals who are developing
MS-DOS clients; I don't know if any have been released yet.
The main thrust of my recent efforts has been in the NeXT client. I
should caution that the NeXT GUI client is still in beta test and that
one functionality (the address book) doesn't work at all. However, it
has been operable enough for me to use as my primary mail UA for a
year now.