[imp] Mail clients and contact database lock-in

[Chuck Hagenbuch]

Quoting Jaap Winius <jwinius at umrk.to>:

> Nevertheless, I have more than a few users who have ended up using a
> dedicated GUI mail client anyway. I can't help imagining, though, that
> they might have remained a little more interested in IMP/Horde if they
> could at least have continued to access -- or better yet, maintain --
> their Turba contact list from within their favorite mail client. My
> impression is that users who were once freed by IMAP/POP to use almost
> any mail client they wanted, still end up using only one in the end
> because of contact database lock-in. In the same way, even we IMP
> users are, to a lesser degree, locked into our Horde databases where
> the Turba contact information is stored.

Well, except that you can import/export data freely from Turba and  
even synchronize it now using SyncML.

> Has the idea of making Turba contact information more available ever
> been given any serious consideration? Is there, perhaps, a Thunderbird
> plug-in that I haven't heard of yet? It would be interesting to hear
> what other people have to say about this subject.

We'd have to write plugins for every single email client. Some clients  
*do* have better LDAP support, and those work fine with Turba. Or you  
could use a client with IMSP support and Turba's IMSP backend.

Not that I'd turn down a Thunderbird plugin, but in my biased opinion,  
we've done far more to make contact (and other) data open and  
exchangeable than desktop email clients have.

Also, any particular reason you sent this to the IMP list instead of Turba?

-chuck