CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_

Reported by Terry Gray/University of Washington

Minutes of the Interactive Mail Access Protocol Working Group (IMAP)


Agenda

   o Introductions
   o IMAP overview
   o Comments on the charter
   o Status of implementations
   o Status of protocol specification
   o Comments on Columbus BOF notes
   o Additional IMAP change requests
   o Seattle meeting


References:  /imap/imap* on ftp.cac.washington.edu


Summary

There were 20 people in attendance.  For several, it was their first
exposure to IMAP, so a few minutes was spent summarizing what IMAP is,
how it compares/relates to other alternatives, and what the working
group is chartered to do.  The working group charter and notes from the
Columbus BOF were reviewed and questions were answered.  The status of
the protocol specification and known IMAP implementations was reviewed.
(An Internet-Draft is being composed that integrates and updates RFC
1176 and the imap2bis extensions.)  Existing practice on the use of IMAP
for news, archive, and document access (in addition to mail) was
covered.  Discussion on possible IMAP extensions followed.  Finally, the
next working group meeting (in Seattle, August 30-31) was announced.


Discussion Points


   o Disconnected operation support, ala DMSP, continues to be widely
     desired.

   o There is considerable interest in using IMAP to access message
     archives.

   o Several people asked about extensions to support binary message
     part access, without Base64 or QP encoding:

      -  Is it Possible?
      -  What would be the Impact on s-expression model?
      -  Can unencoded binary attachments be transferred without charset
         concerns?

   o The question of signaling when large blocks of data are being
     transferred was discussed:  congestion of pipe; need to have
     multiple channels or out-of-band signals.

   o Can we have an IMAP server capabilities command, ala new SMTP?

   o Be sure to look at URL/I work before settling on unique message ID
     scheme.

   o Is IMAP a distribution list alternative:  shared but limited access
     mailbox?

   o Can IMAP ``integrate'' two mailboxes (remote mail archive plus
     local subset)?

   o Should IMAP become ``Interactive Message Access Protocol''?


Action Items

Terry Gray needs to maintain (or cause to be maintained) an IMAP
enhancement/request list, sorted into the following categories:


   o Protocol bug fixes
   o Upward compatible extensions

      -  high priority
      -  lower priority

   o Non-upward compatible changes

      -  high priority
      -  lower priority

   o Bad, or not clearly good, ideas


A subset of that list must then be defined as the target for the
immediate standardization effort, with other ideas being deferred for
future consideration.  Given the desire to preserve compatibility with
the installed base, and move ahead promptly in getting a base IMAP
standard defined, extensions will be necessarily limited to those deemed
to have an extremely high priority.

Mark Crispin needs to integrate RFC 1176 text with IMAP2BIS text and
submit it as an Internet-Draft no later than August 15th.

IMAP implementors/interested parties are encouraged to come to the next
meeting in Seattle, August 30-31.


Attendees

Matti Aarnio             mea@nic.nordu.net
Chris Adie               C.J.Adie@edinburgh.ac.uk
James Allard             jallard@microsoft.com
Luc Boulianne            lucb@cs.mcgill.ca
J. Nevil Brownlee        nevil@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz
Al Costanzo              al@akc.com
Maria Dimou-Zacharova    dimou@dxcern.cern.ch
Christoph Graf           graf@switch.ch
Terry Gray               gray@cac.washington.edu
Jari Hamalainen          jah@rctre.nokia.com
Xander Jansen            xander.jansen@surfnet.nl
Scott Kaplan             scott@wco.ftp.com
Jim Knowles              jknowles@binky.arc.nasa.gov
Keith Moore              moore@cs.utk.edu
Mel Pleasant             pleasant@hardees.rutgers.edu
Robert Reschly           reschly@brl.mil
Kenneth Rossen           kenr@shl.com
David Sitman             a79vm.tau.ac.il
Peter Svanberg           psv@nada.kth.se
Gregory Vaudreuil        gvaudre@cnri.reston.va.us