MBOX-Line: From janssen at parc.com  Tue May 31 08:45:56 2011
To: imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
From: Bill Janssen <janssen@parc.com>
Date: Fri Jun  8 12:34:46 2018
Subject: [Imap-protocol] History question.
In-Reply-To: <2CB073A1-B421-4CFB-AE30-B17005C876A0@iki.fi>
References: <4DDEA412.6030305@aol.com> <4DDEDDD6.1040507@logicprobe.org>
	<alpine.BSO.2.00.1105261628370.892@morgaine.smi.sendmail.com>
	<2CB073A1-B421-4CFB-AE30-B17005C876A0@iki.fi>
Message-ID: <78614.1306856756@parc.com>

Timo Sirainen <tss@iki.fi> wrote:

> IMAP over XML maybe?..)

I'm sure it had been a long week when you wrote this, Timo.

A:  IMAP over HTTP, I suppose, though, why?  But nothing is "over" XML --
it's just a syntax.  Microsoft SOAP, for instance, is XML-encrypted DCE
RPC over HTTP, designed because circa 1997 people were willing to poke
holes in their firewalls for port 80.  HTTP is the key, not XML.

B:  The problem with the "runs in a browser" solution is that Javascript
can only make calls to other processes (or servers) by doing HTTP
requests back to the server it was downloaded from.  So it can't speak
any ordinary IETF ASCII protocol.  That's the key weakness of "web"
approaches.

Bill

