Re: mail split with multiple backends

[Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann)]

On 23 Oct 2000, Didier Verna wrote:
> 
> Yup. The only thing I'm not very confident about is how we would
> deal with interaction between different servers (like respooling
> across backends).

Well, the user enters a target server when using `B r', and the target
server parameters decide the split methods.  In the context of `B r',
mail-sources is irrelevant.

> Making server parameters of these variables don't seem like a
> sufficiently abstracted design to me; the same applies to the kludge
> I'm currently using BTW.

Hm.  I thought that server parameters would be a very good place to do
it, but I've been thinking more from an implementation point of view,
I'm afraid.  Hm.

> The other problem with this solution is that it still requires an
> external mail split process, before Gnus actually reads its mail
> sources. This should also be ideally avoided. I haven't thought very
> much about this yet.

You're right, this is bad.  It could be circumvented if there was some
protocol whereby mail splitting could leave messages where they are.

But maybe it would be even better if there was just one variable which
contained rules for splitting, and the target groups could be on any
server and the rules could include conditions based on where the
messages come from.

I think that Lars says that this would be hard to implement, though,
because the (some?) backends circumvent the normal
-request-accept-article machinery, for efficiency.  I wonder how much
efficiency does this buy us?  Maybe the splitting machinery should use
the normal -request-accept-article machinery.

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.