MBOX-Line: From mrc at CAC.Washington.EDU  Wed May 30 15:07:36 2007
To: imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
From: Mark Crispin <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU>
Date: Fri Jun  8 12:34:39 2018
Subject: [Imap-protocol] Vista Mail doesn't handle \NoSelect mailboxes?
In-Reply-To: <BF01B191-D34E-47DE-A4FB-EAF1CADE4715@apple.com>
References: <alpine.OSX.0.99.0705301048240.11683@pangtzu.panda.com>
	<20070530113546.Q27473@orthanc.ca>
	<alpine.WNT.0.99.0705301146290.5388@Shimo-Tomobiki.Panda.COM>
	<BF01B191-D34E-47DE-A4FB-EAF1CADE4715@apple.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.OSX.0.99.0705301451230.13729@pangtzu.panda.com>

On Wed, 30 May 2007, Sarah Wilkin wrote:
> Do you mean automatic subscription to existing mailboxes only, or do you also 
> think there's a problem with automatically subscribing to new mailboxes that 
> the user creates? (That is, always sending SUBSCRIBE after CREATE)

Thank you for asking.  The answer to your question is "yes".

The only time any IMAP client should subscribe to any mailbox is if the 
human user explicitly issues a command to do so.

IMAP subscriptions should be thought of as being equivalent to newsgroup 
subscriptions, or roughly equivalent to browser bookmarks; something that 
the user manages.  The client should NOT unilaterally add names to the 
subscription list.

It is as wrong for an IMAP client to add mailboxes to the subscription 
list automatically as it would be for an NNTP client to add newsgroups to 
the newsgroup subscription list automatically, or a web browser to add 
URLs to the bookmarks list automatically.

The way to get the list of mailboxes is the LIST command.  The LIST 
command is what should be used to build the mailbox tree browser.

The purpose of the IMAP subscription feature was so that people could 
access newsgroups via IMAP with their newsgroup subscription list on the 
server, and to be extensible for similar applications.  The abuse of the 
IMAP subscription feature by certain clients made it so this capability 
never was commonly used.

Now, we see a client -- Vista Mail -- which won't let you look at the 
children of a name unless it can subscribe that name.

-- Mark --

http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.

