On Wednesday 30 April 2003 01:22, ned(_dot_)freed(_at_)mrochek(_dot_)com
wrote:
<snip>
That's not an excuse for turning sieve so heavy that many if not most
service providers will be unwilling to provide support for it.
<snip>
Not every ISP will want to support all Sieve extensions. They don't need
to. Many ISP will probably refrain from allowing regex use, of
variables, for that matter. I think it's perfectly OK to create Sieve
extensions that are explicitely not suitable for all Sieve use cases.
E.g. the envelope extension can't be used in MUAs since that
information in general is lost on final delivery. OTOH, people will
want to have execute command/play sound actions (the latter could be
added to notify) on the client.
If it were only this simple... If an extension is defined that proves to be
wildely popular ISPs will have to choose between supporting a dialect of
sieve that presents as an ongoing series of support isses and not supporting
sieve at all. I deal with these people on a daily basis, and I can assure
you that given such a choice they will go with the latter. And given their
economic reality I'd probably make the same choice.
Like it or not, there's real cost associated with expanding sieve into a
full-fledged language. And that cost may end up being irrelevance.
I agree, though, that the I-Ds currently floating around should first be
advanced to RFCs before proposing even more extensions. It's a bit too
much currently ;-)
It certainly is.
Ned