Re: [Evolution] BURL in Evolution

[Patrick O'Callaghan <poc usb ve>]

On Tue, 2020-06-02 at 10:40 -0600, Zan Lynx wrote:
> On 6/2/2020 9:19 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> > https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4468
> > """The submission profile of Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
> >     provides a standard way for an email client to submit a complete
> >     message for delivery.  This specification extends the submission
> >     profile by adding a new BURL command that can be used to fetch
> >     submission data from an Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
> >     server.  This permits a mail client to inject content from an IMAP
> >     server into the SMTP infrastructure without downloading it to the
> >     client and uploading it back to the server."""
> >
> > I, personally, cannot imagine what the User Interface for such a
> > feature would be in a 'normal' MUA.
>
> It would look just like the current Evolution or Thunderbird interface. 
> The client would write the outgoing message into the Sent folder on the 
> IMAP server. Then the SMTP command uses that message reference instead 
> of writing the message contents out again.
>
> Or it could be used for message forwarding. Instead of downloading the 
> entire email plus attachments then uploading again, it could be 
> forwarded by the client by reference to the original IMAP location.

I'm with Adam on this. This is one of those things that looks like a
great idea until you realise that it completely breaks the separation
of function between SMTP and IMAP, with who knows what unnoticed
complications down the line, including security. By way of
illustration: there is a primitive for posting a message in another
user's mailbox (as long as it's on the same server) which bypasses SMTP
entirely, and Evolution used to support it at one point, but it no
longer seems to exist (IIRC it was called "Post"). That would indicate
that these things are less useful than they appear.

poc