IMAP debate [was Re: Blackberry-like device, MacOS X, and/or IMAP? ]

[p.lussier at comcast.net]

In a message dated: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 23:40:33 EDT
Tom Buskey said:

>> Based on the stupidity of the UW IMAP design, I'd never use it for 
>> more than a couple people in a non-critical environment.

>I completely agree.  I had lots of issues at a site with 80 users with 
>10 of them having 1GB inboxes.  I think the number of messages and 
>attachment size has little to do with it.  It's the linear search 
>through a large file....

Well, it's that, and the fact that to delete/expunge messages, it 
first copies the entire mailbox to /tmp, unlinks the file, then 
copies the mailbox back to var/spool/mail one message at a time, 
skipping the messages flagged for deletion.  

This all works great until you have users with inboxes larger /tmp!

>MBX has a bit of an advantage over mbox but not much.  I think there are 
>patches out there that let UW-Imap do maildir.

The nice thing about Cyrus, from what I've seen is that it's similar 
to MH in the sense that each message is a separate file.  You want to 
delete a message, you delete that file. You need to rename a folder, 
you mv the directory.

The other nice thing about it is the database for user 
authentication.  There's no need to add a system user account for 
someone who just wants to get e-mail.  UW-IMAP is another UW student 
project gone awry :)
-- 

Seeya,
Paul
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