Re: Rmail-mbox branch

[Stefan Monnier]

>>> Here's my conundrum.  I'm married to IMAP, for better or worse.  I have my
>>> mail on a very reliable RAID5, backed up, fast server.  One under my
>> Adding proper IMAP support to Rmail is between difficult and impossible,

> Distressing but not surprising to hear.  I'm guessing there has been
> discussions around this topic but I can't find any trace.  Do you have
> a reference or can you elaborate?

No, it's just my own assessment based on my knwoledge of how IMAP and
Rmail work.

>> but if you limit yourself to using the IMAP protocol in order to
>> download your messages (i.e. as if it were just POP), then it should be
>> pretty simple and indeed using GNU mailutils's code may give you this
>> feature for free.

> I am getting my messages now using the mailutil movemail which will allow me
> to use both Rmail/mbox and Thunderbird on a daily basis.

Good.

>> We do want to bring Emacs's and mailutils's movemail closer.
> This is very good to hear.  What else can you tell me?  Is someone working
> on it?  Have constraints been established?

Not that I know.  It's just generally desirable to reuse other
people's work.

> Having movemail provide a "synchronize" operation for IMAP seems to
> make some sense to me but in due time I suppose.

That would probably be the easiest way to get Rmail to "properly"
support IMAP.  "Easiest" does not necessarily mean "easy", of course.
Especially if you want it to work reliably.


        Stefan