1 public-inbox - an "archives first" approach to mailing lists
2 ------------------------------------------------------------
4 public-inbox implements the sharing of an email inbox via git to
5 complement or replace traditional mailing lists. Readers may
6 read via NNTP, Atom feeds or HTML archives.
8 public-inbox spawned around three main ideas:
10 * Publicly accessible and archived communication is essential to
11 Free Software development.
13 * Contributing to Free Software projects should not require the
14 use of non-Free services or software.
16 * Graphical user interfaces should not be required for text-based
19 public-inbox aims to be easy-to-deploy and manage; encouraging projects
20 to run their own instances with minimal overhead.
25 public-inbox stores mail in a git repository keyed by Message-ID
26 as documented in: https://ssoma.public-inbox.org/ssoma_repository.txt
28 By storing (and optionally) exposing an inbox via git, it is
29 fast and efficient to host and mirror public-inboxes.
31 Traditional mailing lists use the "push" model. For readers,
32 that requires commitment to subscribe and effort to unsubscribe.
33 New readers may also have difficulty following existing
34 discussions if archives do not expose Message-ID and References
35 headers. List server admins are also burdened with delivery
38 public-inbox uses the "pull" model. Casual readers may also
39 follow the list via NNTP, Atom feed or HTML archives.
41 If a reader loses interest, they simply stop syncing.
43 Since we use git, mirrors are easy-to-setup, and lists are
44 easy-to-relocate to different mail addresses without losing
45 or splitting archives.
47 _Anybody_ may also setup a delivery-only mailing list server to
48 replay a public-inbox git archive to subscribers via SMTP.
53 * anybody may participate via plain-text email
55 * stores email in git, readers may have a complete archive of the inbox
57 * Atom feed and NNTP allows casual readers to follow via feed reader
59 * uses only well-documented and easy-to-implement data formats
61 Try it out now, see https://try.public-inbox.org/
63 Requirements for reading:
65 * any software capable of NNTP or following Atom feeds
67 Any basic web browser will do for the HTML archives.
68 We primarily develop on w3m to maximize accessibility.
70 Requirements (participant)
71 --------------------------
73 * any MUA which may send text-only emails ("git send-email" works!)
74 Users are strongly encouraged to use the "reply-all" feature of
75 their mailers to reduce the impact of a public-inbox as a
76 single point of failure.
78 * participants do not need to install public-inbox, only server admins
83 See https://public-inbox.org/INSTALL
88 AGPL source code is available via git:
90 git clone https://public-inbox.org/ public-inbox
91 git clone git://repo.or.cz/public-inbox
92 torsocks git clone http://hjrcffqmbrq6wope.onion/public-inbox
94 See below for contact info.
99 We are happy to see feedback of all types via plain-text email.
100 public-inbox discussion is self-hosting on public-inbox.org
101 Please send comments, user/developer discussion, patches, bug reports,
102 and pull requests to our public-inbox address at:
104 meta@public-inbox.org
106 Please Cc: all recipients when replying as we do not require
107 subscription. This also makes it easier to rope in folks of
108 tangentially related projects we depend on (e.g. git developers
109 on git@vger.kernel.org).
111 The archives are readable via NNTP or HTTP:
113 nntp://news.public-inbox.org/inbox.comp.mail.public-inbox.meta
114 https://public-inbox.org/meta/
116 And as Tor hidden services:
118 http://hjrcffqmbrq6wope.onion/meta/
119 nntp://hjrcffqmbrq6wope.onion/inbox.comp.mail.public-inbox.meta
121 You may also clone all messages via git:
123 git clone --mirror https://public-inbox.org/meta/
124 torsocks git clone --mirror http://hjrcffqmbrq6wope.onion/meta/
126 Or pass the same git repository URL for ssoma using the instructions at:
128 https://ssoma.public-inbox.org/README.html
133 The maintainer of public-inbox has found SpamAssassin a good tool for
134 filtering his personal mail, and it will be the default spam filtering
135 tool in public-inbox.
137 See https://public-inbox.org/dc-dlvr-spam-flow.html for more info.
142 To discourage phishing, trackers, exploits and other nuisances,
143 only plain-text emails are allowed and HTML is rejected.
144 This improves accessibility, and saves bandwidth and storage
145 as mail is archived forever.
147 As of the 2010s, successful online social networks and forums are the
148 ones which heavily restrict users formatting options; so public-inbox
149 aims to preserve the focus on content, and not presentation.
154 Copyright 2013-2018 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
155 License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>
157 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
158 it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by
159 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
160 (at your option) any later version.
162 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
163 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
164 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
165 GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
167 You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
168 along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
170 Additional permission under GNU GPL version 3 section 7:
172 If you modify this program, or any covered work, by linking or
173 combining it with the OpenSSL project's OpenSSL library (or a
174 modified version of that library), containing parts covered by the
175 terms of the OpenSSL or SSLeay licenses, the copyright holder(s)
176 grants you additional permission to convey the resulting work.
177 Corresponding Source for a non-source form of such a combination
178 shall include the source code for the parts of OpenSSL used as well
179 as that of the covered work.