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Re: Requesting comments on draft-melnikov-imap-postaddress-05.txt




Alexey Melnikov wrote:

Cyrus Daboo wrote:

Hi Alexey,

Hi Cyrus,

--On November 13, 2006 8:29:16 PM +0000 Alexey Melnikov <alexey.melnikov@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

This is more of a generic question, but when should items like this be
METADATA as opposed to a LISTEXT item? To me, POSTADDRESS really feels
like a property of the mailbox as opposed to a property of the
mailstore. I see LISTEXT items as mailstore properties (e.g., one
mailbox is a child of another) and METADATA as mailbox properties. So
I would prefer to see this as a METADATA item.

The main difference is that METADATA data is usually read-write (with
exception of /motd), while POSTADDRESS never is. It has to be generated
by the server.

METADATA is only 'usually read-write' because most of what we have defined up until now has been that way. That's not to say METADATA was never intended for read-only items.

FWIW, Cyrus IMAP has several (currently 5?) mailbox METADATA items which are read-only, and at least one of those is generated on the fly.


Fair enough. This is one of the generic discussions we need to have before METADATA is published. I generally consider METADATA to be unsuitable for things generated on the fly.

I disagree, I don't see why generating a value on the fly versus pulling it from a file or database makes any difference. I'm in agreement with Cyrus on this; POSTADDRESS is definitely metadata related to a mailbox and seems a perfect candidate as a METADATA entry.

The value is going to be returned via LISTEXT either way, but I don't see why we need to add a new LISTEXT return option when we already have METADATA, which seems to be a perfect fit.

--
Kenneth Murchison
Systems Programmer
Project Cyrus Developer/Maintainer
Carnegie Mellon University