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Comment by xDest | Hacker News Reader

A German newspaper has some more information on that, for example that this is headed by Rafael Laguna of Open-Xchange https://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/whatsapp-konkurrent-open...

The aim seems to be to create a system that can replace centralized messenger solutions by allowing use of existing IMAP servers or hosting one yourself. I am not sure if this is correct but the article states that they are already supplying the software for three quarters of all IMAP servers worldwide and seem to be interested in connecting with Google to bring this to fruition.

Pretty interesting read (although only German) but it seems the marketing on this topic may have just started.

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"COI uses an email address ... means it can already connect 3.8 billion users"

followed by

"After checking for server compatibility..."

Does this reduce the target pool? How much?

Also, how many people still use POP?

You will be able to chat via email even if the IMAP backend does not (yet) support COI. You lose features, though.

Looks like native COI compatibility on the server makes life easier for a client, and adds advanced features as opposed to restricting some servers from the party:

>"A COI client should check for COI support from the server first. it will CAPABILITY after having logged into the IMAP service. If the returned capabilities list contains the "COI" capability, then the client does not need to filter messages on the client side. It will also have more advanced options at its disposal, see the server side specifications for details."

The requirements are just an IMAP (or JMAP) server that conforms to the IMAP RFC:

>"The IMAP server may or may not be COI-compatible. The IMAP service MUST be compatible with IMAP v4rev1 as defined in RFC 3501, which is the case for almost any IMAP service in production." An SMTP service for sending messages. Sending services are also called Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs)."

Note:

> three quarters of all IMAP servers

doesn't not mean 3/4 of internet users (e.g. I expect Google's IMAP servers represent a disproportionately large number of users).

Dovecot is likely more likely to be used by a long tail of smaller nodes.

We have about 7bn total unique active (3 months) accounts in the world, 50-60% is Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo and a few more, 40-50% are real IMAP servers, of which 76% use Dovecot. Very large deployments include companies like Comcast, Deutsche Telekom, 1&1, LGI (Ziggo, Virgin Media, UPC) with 10m+ user deployments, and yes, a veeery long tail of millions of small servers and anything in between. But COI will also play fine with GMail and friends.

Yeah, Dovecot is part of Open-Xchange, the number comes from http://www.openemailsurvey.org

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