[Kolab-devel] Thoughts about an optional alternative to Guam

[Timotheus Pokorra]

Hello developers of Kolab,

(question: should I post this on kolab hub instead? where are most
developers reading and participating???)

I personally think that Guam is too complicated for the home user.
It might have its place in an enterprise, with paid subscription and
support from Kolab Systems.
But for the open source user that just wants to manage his family
email, it is overkill.
Too many dependancies on Erlang and such. A new language that is not mainstream.
If it breaks, can I fix it myself?

Thinking about the use cases described in
https://exote.ch/blogs/aseigo/2015/12/10/guam-an-imap-session-filterproxy/:

The only use case that is implemented currently is
filter_groupware_folders. That is actually a good feature. But I
wonder if we cannot patch Cyrus (and Dovecot) to recognise the client
and only publish folders that the client understands. Of course that
patch needs to go upstream when it works.

The other use cases could also be implemented in Cyrus: not
downloading attachments for mobile devices, perhaps this is part of
the JMAP effort already? Same for listing only unread messages.
Filtering top secret mails when outside of company firewall: this is
again something targetted on enterprises, same for switching between
several IMAP servers.

What do people think?

All the best,
  Timotheus