Project dream

[Paul Rubin]

hwlgw at hotmail.com (Will Stuyvesant) writes:
> What would your favorite be?

A CVS-like system for email.  You'd receive all your messages on a
server somewhere.  You'd then be able to connect your laptop to the
internet, download ("check out") your mail, and read and reply to it
offline (not necessarily all of it).  When you dial up again, the
replies get sent out and stored ("checked in") on the server, the
messages that you read get marked as read, the ones you didn't read
don't get marked, etc.  The CVS-like aspect is that you can do the
same thing from your office computer, your friend's computer, etc., so
you have the same messages checked out on multiple clients at the same
time.  The server automatically merges the "change sets" when you
check any in.  Finally, the server shouldn't need any special protocol
to check messages in or out.  It should be able to create a single
tarball or zipfile that you download, and accept a single tarball or
zipfile when you upload

I've been wanting for a while to write something like this.  Everyone
I've mentioned it to wants to use it.  I'm amazed it doesn't exist
already, at least in any well-known form.