[Foss-cafe] mail filtering setup protocol

[Daniel Cassidy]

On Thu, 2004-05-20 at 01:45, Fred Smith wrote:
> Instead, filtering should be
> done within, or shortly after the inital SMTP conversation. Doing it
> within the SMTP conversation is possible but difficult, as the SMTP
> conversation needs to be over quickly;  SMTP servers are busy creatures
> and will give up if they have to wait too long. Doing it shortly
> afterwards doesn't allow you to reject mail as part of your filtering
> process;  a goal more and more desirable as one looks at the current
> state of junk mail filtering.

I took the original mail to mean that the filters are *specified* using
either IMAP extensions or some other protocol, and then actually applied
to mail subsequently received by the server, although upon re-reading I
may have misunderstood.

Specifying filters using IMAP is either sensible or not depending on the
potential extensibility of IMAP, the feasability of using an alternative
protocol and the likelihood of any particular method to be a 'clean'
technical solution. Given the previously foolishly ignored fact that the
IMAP server is not the same piece of software as the rest of a mail
serving system (duh :)), it would appear that a seperate protocol is the
best solution.

In any case, I agree with the fundamental idea that there should be a
method for a mail client to communicate desired filtering rules to a
mail server and that those filtering rules should be stored on the
server. Anyone who has tried to synchonise mail between a desktop and
laptop can understand why this would be beneficial.