[kwlug-disc] Does anyone want to take over Thunderbird?

[B.S.]

----- Original Message -----
> From: Bob Jonkman <bjonkman at sobac.com>
> To: KWLUG discussion <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 1, 2015 3:46 PM
> Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] Does anyone want to take over Thunderbird?
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Andrew Kohlsmith wrote:
>>>  Google has IMAP and SMTP interfaces. I haven’t done any real 
>>>  testing but I’m pretty sure they’re adhering to the RFCs.
> 
> Then B.S. wrote:
>>  They don't.
>> 
>>  The very presence of labels instead of real folders demonstrates 
>>  that.
>> 
>>  I'm not saying labels don't make sense, but not being RFC, and 
>>  developers wanting to stick with RFCs, not moving target
>>  googleisms, means that non-google use of gmail will always be
>>  problematic to at least some extent.
> 
> Google's IMAP implementation presents the labels as folders, so as far
> as any IMAP MUA is concerned, they *are* folders. The database for the
> message store of Google Mail may use labels, and the Google WebUI may
> present them as labels, but their IMAP implementation uses folders.

No. Else we wouldn't be having this conversation.

i.e. Thunderbird wouldn't need special gmail logic, their standard imap/pop/smtp code would just work as it does for any other provider, there would be no complaints or observations here that gmail does/n't work with foo - as there is. Instead, there is all all sorts of special code merely to accommodate gmail, as there is in any other thing I know that claims some gmail interoperability.

That we are having this conversation demonstrates the incompatibility.

Easy example, continuing with labels ... delete a message with a label and ... it's not actually gone. Until you find and delete it from the 'folder' of every other label it has.