Whether they drop support or not, clearly their idea here is to replace it.
Replacing globally supported open standards with proprietary APIs is one of the things people hated about Microsoft in the past.
Why does Google seem to get a pass from so many developers for this type of behavior? Or worse, get applauded for it?
If the argument is IMAP is out of date and crappy, then OK, let's make a new standard. Unilaterally making your own API is not the way. Unless you don't care about anyone but yourself.
> Whether they drop support or not, clearly their idea here is to replace it.
Its clearly their idea to replace it for some use cases for which IMAP's design is completely unsuited. Beyond that seems to be speculation.
> If the argument is IMAP is out of date and crappy, then OK, let's make a new standard. Unilaterally making your own API is not the way.
Actually, unilaterally creating your own API, getting some real use and experience with it, and refining it and submitting it for standardization is exactly the way that useful new standards usually get created. Attempts at creating standards not based on existing unilateral APIs often result in things that no one ever implements, like XHTML 2.
Having spent one year of my life trying to replicate Gmail's interface in a desktop app through IMAP (www.betterinbox.com), I can say with confidence that IMAP is completely unsuited for the Gmail paradigm. If we had this API back when we were working on BetterInbox in 2011, our lives would have been much easier.
Replacing globally supported open standards with proprietary APIs is one of the things people hated about Microsoft in the past.
Why does Google seem to get a pass from so many developers for this type of behavior? Or worse, get applauded for it?
If the argument is IMAP is out of date and crappy, then OK, let's make a new standard. Unilaterally making your own API is not the way. Unless you don't care about anyone but yourself.