home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- The March draft of the IMSP protocol specification listed the "user
- address book" as an issue that was deferred, noting that it probably
- belonged in a separate user directory service.
-
- It is clear to us that a user address book capability is strongly
- desired in the marketplace, to the point where its absence could
- prevent the wide acceptance of a mail system.
-
- Per-user address books can be implemented using the option facility of
- IMSP. A portion of the option namespace can be reserved for address
- book entries and suitable naming conventions can be adopted. For
- example, one might have:
-
- a005 GET ADDRESS.*
- * OPTION ADDRESS.FRED.EMAIL "fflinstone@foo.bar.com"
- * OPTION ADDRESS.FRED.NAME "Fred Flinstone"
- * OPTION ADDRESS.FRED.PHONE "+1 700 555 1234"
- * OPTION ADDRESS.LODGE.EMAIL "fflinstone@foo.bar.com, brubble@foo.bar.com"
- * OPTION ADDRESS.WILMA.EMAIL "wilma@bedrock.edu"
- * OPTION ADDRESS.WILMA.PHYSMAIL "3 Granite Rd; Bedrock"
- a005 OK Get completed
-
- Many mail systems treat the per-user address book and the
- system-wide mail aliases/distribution lists as different instances of
- the same thing. The concepts are so similar that I feel it important
- to implement them with the same subsystem. This would allow both
- per-user address books and system-wide aliases/distribution lists to
- be manipulated with the same set of tools.
-
- System-wide aliases seem to naturally belong in a user directory
- service, as they share the same namespace and have many of the same
- informational attibutes as users.
-
- One way to resolve the conflict between "address books should be in
- IMSP" and "address books belong in the user directory service" is to
- put user directory service functionality into IMSP. This would have
- the advantage of reducing the number of services a mail client would
- have to converse with. On the other hand, it further complicates the
- IMSP protocol and opens an entire can of worms.
-
- A user directory service facility of IMSP would loook something like a
- cross between the option facility and the CSO/ph protocol. I would
- have as a design goal the ability to implement the facility by having
- the IMSP server query an X.500 database, but my limited knowledge of
- X.500 would make that difficult without outside help.
-
- I welcome people's thoughts on the matter.
-
- --
- _.John G. Myers Internet: jgm+@CMU.EDU
- LoseNet: ...!seismo!ihnp4!wiscvm.wisc.edu!give!up
-
-
-
-