Subject: [lemonade] Call the Quetion - Compression: TLS or Application-layer

From: Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 13:34:30 -0400

Given the discussion so far on compression, I would like to call the
question of  how lemonade will  support compression.

How is this for a proposal:

Lemonade will not specify any proprietary, application level compression.

Lemonade will require, in the profile, TLS support.

Lemonade will suggest, in the profile, that if one requires compression,
that one use TLS with a NULL cipher.  We should document the points raised
on the list of why, namely:
* Same computational complexity for, e.g., gzipping data in the application
versus TLS with NULL cipher in the transport layer.
* All IMAP servers are required to support TLS, so server (and, for the most
part, clients) do not need to change
* The entire IMAP stream, including login, commands, etc., benefit from
compression, not just data

Unless there are serious objections raised on the list, this is the way we
will go.

<chair-hat-on>
If you have objections, raise them now or forever hold your peace.
</chair-hat-on>

_______________________________________________
lemonade mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/lemonade

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 11:15:06 -0700

>Lemonade will not specify any proprietary, application level compression.

I am not sure what proprietary means in the above.  Do you mean:
"Lemonade will not specify any application-protocol specific compression
for IMAP"?

>that one use TLS with a NULL cipher.

I assume this would allow someone to use a cipher stronger than null
and compression?

>  We should document the points raised

Or, possibly, clients who do need to change would have had to anyway?

>If you have objections, raise them now or forever hold your peace.

It's difficult for a working group participant to know when "now" has
passed when reading a mailing list.  A set period for comments and/or
a decision date are easier.  Could I ask you to name a period or an
end date for comments?
			thanks,
				Ted Hardie

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 06:46:37 -0700 (PDT)

> Unless there are serious objections raised on the list, this is the way we

I think this is the way to go. The only thing I see as missing is the
specification of a particular compression scheme that has to be implemented
by servers supporting compression. I suggest we specify deflate as
the mandatory to implement algorithm.

				Ned