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List:       imap
Subject:    IMSP vs ECSMail address books
From:       John Gardiner Myers <jgm+ () CMU ! EDU>
Date:       1993-07-26 20:24:12
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One of the major differences between the IMSP and ECSmail view of
address books is that IMSP puts no limit on the number of fields or
the length of field values.  Clients should not impose their own
limits on top of IMSP address books.

As Wallace mentioned, we view distribution lists as primarily a
delivery service issue.  You want to be able to name them through the
delivery service.  The delivery-service naming syntax will most likely
be ugly, however, system-wide aliases can make them more
user-friendly.

Distribution lists have at least the following attributes:

* a list of delivery addresses
* a maintainer addres, to put in the envelope return address
* an optional delivery "precedence"
* an ACL permission (p) contolling who may deliver to the list

We tend to see distribution lists as lists of e-mail addresses
(CRLF-separated in the "e-mail" field), not as a list of address book
entries, though you could do it either way by defining a "members"
field with CRLF-separated alias names.

I find it interesting that ECSMail has separate fields for
"common_name" and "alias".  Every other mailer we have seen (except
our own AMS) indexes address book entries by name only.  As a result,
we are considering dropping the "alias must be ATOM" restriction and
allowing clients to use full names as aliases.  To be addressable from
the delivery system, however, an alias would probably have to conform
to the syntax for an RFC-822 local-part.

Could you describe how your UI handles separate aliases and
common_names?

-- 
_.John G. Myers		Internet: jgm+@CMU.EDU
			LoseNet:  ...!seismo!ihnp4!wiscvm.wisc.edu!give!up

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