On 1/29/03 at 6:13 PM +0700, Robert Elz wrote:
A new IETF working group has been proposed in the Applications Area.
[...]
Enhancements to Internet email to support diverse service
environments (lemonade)
[...]
2. Enhance the existing IMAP4 message retrieval protocol to
satisfy the requirements for streaming playback of multimedia
content.
What a horrid idea? How do "streaming playback" and "message
retrieval" possibly fit together at all? Is this yet another
attempt to pervert a protocol into meeting some other quite
unrelated need, for the sole purpose of getting through firewalls or
similar?
No, that's not what this means. Actually, it's probably just the
opposite of what you fear. For example, let's say you have some data
in a message store which is a nice long hunk of sound. Instead of
using IMAP to download the entire sound in order to play it, it might
be much more intelligent to use an RTSP client to receive the data
and play it directly. The envisioned mechanism would make it possible
for the client to ask the server, "Can I get this back via RTSP, and
if so, where do I connect up?" and the server can tell the client how
to retrieve it.
3. Create a message notification protocol for the specific purpose
of servers reporting message status information to other servers.
A second #3 ...
A typo.
This one looks more like a proposal for a solution, than a work
item. If the solution is already known, a WG isn't needed, just
publish it. Otherwise, indicate what problem needs to be solved, for
which this might be one solution, and see what alternatives are
offered.
The solution is not known. The problem is that there is currently no
standard mechanism for mail servers to announce the existence of new
mail. Current protocols rely on polling or a constant connection to
the mail server. The work item is to come up with a protocol that
does notifications. Does the above not describe that work item
appropriately?
pr
--
Pete Resnick <mailto:presnick(_at_)qualcomm(_dot_)com>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102