OT: advanced mailbox protocols

[Enrico Weigelt <weigelt@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

what advanced mailbox access protocols (other than pop or imap) 
are out there ?

I'm currently thinking about designing a new one, which should 
handle lots of things which (AFAIK) aren't supported by pop or imap,
for example:

* (full text) searching 
* direct access to metadata and single message parts
* storage / encoding abstraction
* update notification
* keywording / tagging (listings by keywords, etc)
* compression
* virtual mailboxes (ie. defined upon queries)
* message composing / posting

This protocol should be capable of handling most important functions
of mail, newsgroups, bulleting boards, and seveal things, currently
done by MUAs (ie. searching, ...).

Does anyone know such an protocol ? 
Or does anyone like to have a little brainstorming for specifying
some new one ?


cu
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