Another set of plausible items to add would be
- Alignment with Web Services
- Mandated 8-bit clean transport (e.g. DIME).
- Moving beyond the text email with attachments idea.
I don't think that a replacement for SMTP is worthwhile unless it provides a
major increase in functionality. I would want to see something that
integrates the functionality of instant messaging, video conferencing, mail,
audio, video p2p and resource syndication.
Oh and be much less complex to implement than current email, spam resistant
etc.
-----Original Message-----
From: Nathaniel Borenstein [mailto:nsb(_at_)guppylake(_dot_)com]
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 4:30 PM
To: mail-ng(_at_)imc(_dot_)org
Subject: Why are we here? What are our goals?
[Sincere thanks to Paul for starting this list.]
As I stated on another mailing list, I'd like to see our email-ng
efforts start with requirements analysis. However, I've always found
it useful to start by compiling a wishlist, as raw data for
requirements abstraction and tradeoff analysis. So I'd like
to start a
wish list of "plausible stuff it would be cool to include in
email-ng."
Here's what I've got so far (I don't actually advocate all
of these):
-- internationalization, esp. of addresses
-- enhanced tracing mechanisms
-- generalized challenge/response mechanisms
-- transport-level authentication
-- binary transport (phasing out C-T-E's)
-- Cleaner separation of header, envelope, and body
-- structured local-part syntax
-- economic mechanisms (postage, attention bonds)
I suggest that we try to grow this into a highly inclusive list of
"desirable things" and then attempt to determine a sensible subset to
work on. -- Nathaniel