POP3 is defined in
RFC 1081, written in November 1988 by
Marshall Rose, which is based on RFC 918 (since revised as RFC
other[?] connection. It does not provide for sending mail,
which is assumed to be done via
SMTP or some other method.
POP is useful for computers, e.g. mobile or home computers,
without a permanent network connection which therefore require
a "post office" (the POP server) to hold their mail until they
can retrieve it.
Although similar in form to the original POP proposed for the
Internet community, POP3 is similar in spirit to the ideas
investigated by the
MZnet project at the University of
California, Irvine, and is incompatible with earlier versions
of POP.
Substantial work was done on examining POP in a
PC-based
environment. This work, which resulted in additional
functionality in this protocol, was performed by the
ACISRFC 1082 (POP3 Extended Service) extends POP3 to deal with
(1997-01-09)