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List:       imap
Subject:    IMAP WG mtg summary and minutes
From:       Terry Gray <gray () cac ! washington ! edu>
Date:       1993-07-14 9:23:25
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IMAP WG meeting summary and minutes: 13 July 1993 (Amsterdam IETF)

SUMMARY

21 people participated.  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 WG charter and notes from the Columbus BOF were
reviewed and questions answered.  The status of the protocol spec 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, Aug 30-31), was announced. 


AGENDA

Introductions
IMAP overview
Comments on the WG Charter?
Status of implementations
Status of protocol spec
Comments on Columbus BOF notes?
Additional IMAP change requests?
Seattle WG meeting 
References: /imap/imap* on ftp.cac.washington.edu


DISCUSSION POINTS

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

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

Several people asked about extensions to support binary message part 
access, without Base64 or QP encoding:
  -Possible?
  -Impact on s-expression model?
  -Can unencoded binary attachments be transferred without charset concerns?

The question of signalling when large blocks of data are being transferred:
  -Congestion of pipe; need to have multiple channels or out-of-band signals

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

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

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

Can IMAP "integrate" two mailboxes (remote mail archive plus local subset)?

Should IMAP become "Interactive Message Access Protocol"?


ACTION ITEMS

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 necessarilly limited to those 
deemed to have an extremely high priority.

Crispin needs to integrate RFC-1176 text with IMAP2BIS text and submit 
as Internet draft not later than Aug 15th.

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

-teg

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