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
17 communication. Users may have broken graphics drivers, limited
18 eyesight, or be unable to afford modern hardware.
20 public-inbox aims to be easy-to-deploy and manage; encouraging projects
21 to run their own instances with minimal overhead.
26 public-inbox stores mail in git repositories as documented
27 in https://public-inbox.org/public-inbox-v2-format.txt and
28 https://public-inbox.org/public-inbox-v1-format.txt
30 By storing (and optionally) exposing an inbox via git, it is
31 fast and efficient to host and mirror public-inboxes.
33 Traditional mailing lists use the "push" model. For readers,
34 that requires commitment to subscribe and effort to unsubscribe.
35 New readers may also have difficulty following existing
36 discussions if archives do not expose Message-ID and References
37 headers. List server admins are also burdened with delivery
40 public-inbox uses the "pull" model. Casual readers may
41 follow the list via NNTP, Atom feed or HTML archives.
43 If a reader loses interest, they simply stop following.
45 Since we use git, mirrors are easy-to-setup, and lists are
46 easy-to-relocate to different mail addresses without losing
47 or splitting archives.
49 _Anybody_ may also setup a delivery-only mailing list server to
50 replay a public-inbox git archive to subscribers via SMTP.
55 * anybody may participate via plain-text email
57 * stores email in git, readers may have a complete archive of the inbox
59 * Atom feed and NNTP allows casual readers to follow via feed reader
61 * uses only well-documented and easy-to-implement data formats
63 Try it out now, see https://try.public-inbox.org/
65 Requirements for reading:
67 * any software capable of NNTP or following Atom feeds
69 Any basic web browser will do for the HTML archives.
70 We primarily develop on w3m to maximize accessibility.
72 Requirements (participant)
73 --------------------------
75 * any MUA which may send text-only emails ("git send-email" works!)
76 Users are strongly encouraged to use the "reply-all" feature of
77 their mailers to reduce the impact of a public-inbox as a
78 single point of failure.
80 * The HTTP web interface exposes mboxrd files, and NNTP clients often
81 feature reply-by-email functionality
83 * participants do not need to install public-inbox, only server admins
88 See https://public-inbox.org/INSTALL
93 AGPL source code is available via git:
95 git clone https://public-inbox.org/public-inbox.git
96 git clone https://repo.or.cz/public-inbox.git
97 torsocks git clone http://hjrcffqmbrq6wope.onion/public-inbox
99 See below for contact info.
104 We are happy to see feedback of all types via plain-text email.
105 public-inbox discussion is self-hosting on public-inbox.org
106 Please send comments, user/developer discussion, patches, bug reports,
107 and pull requests to our public-inbox address at:
109 meta@public-inbox.org
111 Please Cc: all recipients when replying as we do not require
112 subscription. This also makes it easier to rope in folks of
113 tangentially related projects we depend on (e.g. git developers
114 on git@vger.kernel.org).
116 The archives are readable via NNTP or HTTP:
118 nntp://news.public-inbox.org/inbox.comp.mail.public-inbox.meta
119 https://public-inbox.org/meta/
121 And as Tor hidden services:
123 http://hjrcffqmbrq6wope.onion/meta/
124 nntp://hjrcffqmbrq6wope.onion/inbox.comp.mail.public-inbox.meta
126 You may also clone all messages via git:
128 git clone --mirror https://public-inbox.org/meta/
129 torsocks git clone --mirror http://hjrcffqmbrq6wope.onion/meta/
134 The maintainer of public-inbox has found SpamAssassin a good tool for
135 filtering his personal mail, and it will be the default spam filtering
136 tool in public-inbox.
138 See https://public-inbox.org/dc-dlvr-spam-flow.html for more info.
143 To discourage phishing, trackers, exploits and other nuisances,
144 only plain-text emails are allowed and HTML is rejected by default.
145 This improves accessibility, and saves bandwidth and storage
146 as mail is archived forever.
148 As of the 2010s, successful online social networks and forums are the
149 ones which heavily restrict users formatting options; so public-inbox
150 aims to preserve the focus on content, and not presentation.
155 Copyright 2013-2020 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
156 License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>
158 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
159 it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by
160 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
161 (at your option) any later version.
163 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
164 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
165 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
166 GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
168 You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
169 along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
171 Additional permission under GNU GPL version 3 section 7:
173 If you modify this program, or any covered work, by linking or
174 combining it with the OpenSSL project's OpenSSL library (or a
175 modified version of that library), containing parts covered by the
176 terms of the OpenSSL or SSLeay licenses, the copyright holder(s)
177 grants you additional permission to convey the resulting work.
178 Corresponding Source for a non-source form of such a combination
179 shall include the source code for the parts of OpenSSL used as well
180 as that of the covered work.