I'm not sure I understand: JMAP is designed for communication between the client and the mail server. But you still would need a mail server, always on, to receive the incoming mail from other servers, right ?
Did I miss something about JMAP?
Re:JMAP: Like IMAP but Not Really
by jasonmunro on Friday January 25, 2019 @04:40AM
(#18996745)
Nope, you are exactly correct. JMAP is just a much more modern and efficient way to connect clients and servers to access E-mail.
Why?
Mail is decentralized already. Part from relying on DNS.
And you seem very eager to put everything in the amazon basket.
If everyone hosts their email with Amazon it's gonna be quite centralised.
> JMAP is not designed around a persistent network socket, so it’s perfect for webmail clients that connect, do stuff, then disconnect
This would allow implementing JMAP in serverless architecture, e.g. self hosting on AWS lambda. That should be very cheap and significantly lower the barrier to self hosting (not needing to manage a box, just providing aws credentials).
Think of what it takes to truly decentralise email. There are technical hurdles, but also some fundamental ones:
- other providers mark you as spam because you’re unknown
- you need an always on server to actually get your incoming mail
This would at least solve the second problem. If we can develop a product like mailinabox (Which has its flaws but it’s the right idea), but instead of asking for a fresh vm, it just asks for aws credentials, that could be pretty solid.
Hopefully one day we can give the people back their control over their means of communication. This seems like a step in the right direction!