--On 12/02/02 01:15:42 -0500 Eric Gillespie wrote:
> Unless you have to support users who *need* mbox, go with
> maildir.  Delivery to a maildir is atomic, while mbox is
> guaranteed to give you a corrupt mailbox once in a while.

Not true.  While the mbox format is poorly designed, corruption will only 
be a problem if you use mail over NFS or if your mail clients and delivery 
agent don't agree on a locking method.  The big problem with mbox is that 
you cannot have multiple processes with simultaneous write access.

Maildir is not supported by many mail clients and it suffers from the 
standard one-file-per-message, no-header-database problems (same as MH 
format).  I don't care for it, but your mailbox format will be driven by 
both your programs and your needs; it may work for you.

>>     Any recommended POP3 or IMAP servers?  Or, for that matter, web-mail
>>     servers that I might want to try?  (^&

I run wu-imapd (and the included pop3 server, though I never use pop 
myself).  It drops in and works with no configuration.  Every-day folders 
are stored in MBX format (a special format supported by wu-imapd which is 
fast and safe, and allows multiple writers); archive folders are mbox 
format since every mail tool on the planet (including grep) can handle it.

The nice thing about this setup is that pine uses the same "c-client" 
library as wu-imapd, so I can SSH in and use pine, and connect remotely 
over IMAP (and web-IMAP), and download mail to my laptop for "disconnected 
mode", and nothing steps on anyone else's toes.

I'd caution against the Courier IMAP server; it disobeys the IMAP RFCs in 
subtle ways, and the author loudly claims that the problems are in the RFCs 
not in his program.  But it works with most IMAP clients, and many people 
seem happy with it.

	-Kevin