When accessed from a mail client, mail servers expect connections by IMAP, POP, and SMTP. The back-end inter-server comms use SMTP. But HTTP requests are standard for many non-web internet apps. Aside from historical reasons (the mail protocols predate HTTP and are well-established) why have mail providers not moved towards HTTP (or HTTPS) as a well-supported, flexible standard for client communication? If the mail protocols continue to evolve, what are the arguments for keeping them separate?
If rms can use SMTP for web pages, we might as well do the opposite. ;-)<p>Email has different needs than do web pages, thus the protocols are different. <i>Could</i> one implement email over HTTP? Sure! But what, exactly, will be the benefits and costs? And then there <i>is</i> history. Unless the benefits are extremely compelling it will never be worthwhile to upset the entire email infrastructure.
There's an old saying "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." A saying that often fits those enamored of HTTP tools....<p>Why do we have Spanish? Or English? Or any other language? Can't it all be said in one?<p>Similarly there are some things that get handled in one protocol that can't be as readily executed in others. Yes, you could do mail using HTTP transactions, but then you'd have to add all the layers that make up IMAP and SMTP actions. Wheel, meet your reinvention.
An old thread about designing a replacement for IMAP:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1101693" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1101693</a>
Can you provide reasons why you think this is a good idea? How it would make your life easier? Or what is broken with the current protocols?<p>I think a stronger argument would be for moving from MIME to XML, I can envision some advantages there, but I don't think that will happen anytime due to inertia.
We barely hear of Google's SPDY, I bet they are secretly working on something like this. They aren't the type to unnecessarly bundle it in with http in SPDY, but maybe they found a reason.