[imp] Mail clients and contact database lock-in

[Jaap Winius]

Quoting Chuck Hagenbuch <chuck at horde.org>:

>> ... 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.

Oh, it's easy enough to export, but some data is usually lost when you  
import it into another contact management database. It's a general  
problem not at all unique to Turba.

> ... Some clients *do* have better LDAP support, and those work
> fine with Turba.

Care to name any names?

> Or you could use a client with IMSP support and Turba's IMSP backend.

Michael Rubinsky mentioned the Mulberry desktop client.

> 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.

Absolutely! That's one of the reasons I love this software. It's just  
that this advantage does not weigh as heavily with people who have  
little idea of what to do with, say, a comma-delimited database dump.

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

Oh, is there a Turba list? Well, of course there is! Yes, I suppose  
that would have been a better choice.

Cheers,

Jaap