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List:       mutt-dev
Subject:    Re: SMTP
From:       Jeremy Blosser <jblosser () firinn ! org>
Date:       2000-12-21 16:35:51
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D-Man [dsh8290@rit.edu] wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 08:48:40AM +0000, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote:
> > The Mutt maintainers don't want to include MTA functions in Mutt.
> > 
> I can't argue with this philosophy,  it's a large part of what make
> Unix systems so cool.  However, mutt doesn't fully abide by it:  why
> does it support POP and IMAP?  That's not MUA responsibilty,  it's the
> job of fetchmail to fetch the mail.  (or maybe more appropriately, the
> job of the server to send the mail to the local machine where the MDA
> will deliver it)

IMAP is not fundamentally a transport protocol, it is a form of mailbox,
albeit a remote one.  Mutt supports it the way it supports mbox, Maildir,
and other styles of mailboxes: you tell it where the mailbox is, and it
allows you to read it in place.

POP was designed as a transport protocol, but the [maintained*] support in
Mutt is to treat it as IMAP, as a form of remote mailbox.  The [maintained]
support enables one to browse and read a remote POP mailbox w/o actually
retreiving the mail.

[*There is some regular POP support in Mutt that was added some time ago
which most agree goes against the philosophy.  It isn't really maintained
and should probably be removed, but some people yell whenever that is
suggested.**]

[**This is the situation as I understand it... I haven't tried any of the
builds with the new remote POP support yet, so I'm not 100% sure what all
those patches changed about POP support.  I don't have any POP accounts I
read with anything more than telnet anyway.]

-- 
Jeremy Blosser   |   jblosser@firinn.org   |   http://jblosser.firinn.org/
-----------------+-------------------------+------------------------------
the crises posed a question / just beneath the skin
the virtue in my veins replied / that quitters never win

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