-public-inbox - shared mailboxes via git for public discussion
--------------------------------------------------------------
+public-inbox - an "archives first" approach to mailing lists
+------------------------------------------------------------
-public-inbox is an "archives first" approach to mailing lists.
-It implements the sharing of an email inbox to complement or replace
-traditional mailing lists. public-inbox is primarily intended as a
-Free, distributed public communications tool for users and developers of
-Free and Open Source Software. public-inbox should be easy-to-deploy
-and manage; encouraging software projects to run their own instances
-with minimal overhead.
+public-inbox implements the sharing of an email inbox via git to
+complement or replace traditional mailing lists. Readers may
+read via NNTP, IMAP, Atom feeds or HTML archives.
+
+public-inbox spawned around three main ideas:
+
+* Publicly accessible and archived communication is essential to
+ Free Software development.
+
+* Contributing to Free Software projects should not require the
+ use of non-Free services or software.
+
+* Graphical user interfaces should not be required for text-based
+ communication. Users may have broken graphics drivers, limited
+ eyesight, or be unable to afford modern hardware.
+
+public-inbox aims to be easy-to-deploy and manage; encouraging projects
+to run their own instances with minimal overhead.
Implementation
--------------
-public-inbox uses ssoma[1], Some Sort Of Mail Archiver which implements
-no policy of its own. By exposing an inbox via git, readers may follow
-the mailing list without subscribing via SMTP and have easy access to
-old messages.
-
-Traditional mailing lists use the "push" model. List servers deliver
-content via SMTP to other mail servers used by readers of the mailing
-list. For readers, this requires commitment to subscribe to the list
-and extra effort to unsubscribe. New readers may also have difficulty
-following existing discussions if archives do not expose Message-ID
-headers for responses. List server admins are also burdened with
-occasional bounce messages.
-
-public-inbox uses the "pull" model. Readers import mail into an mbox,
-Maildir, or IMAP folder from git repositories periodically. If a reader
-loses interest, they simply stop syncing. Since ssoma uses git,
-mirrors are easy-to-setup, and lists are easy-to-relocate to different
-mail addresses without losing/splitting archives. Dedicated readers
-only need to install ssoma, a command-line tool[1] currently implemented
-in Perl.
-
-Casual readers may also follow the list via Atom feed or web archives.
-
-_Anybody_ may also setup a delivery-only mailing list server to replay
-a public-inbox git archive to subscribers via SMTP.
-
-[1] http://ssoma.public-inbox.org/README
+
+public-inbox stores mail in git repositories as documented
+in https://public-inbox.org/public-inbox-v2-format.txt and
+https://public-inbox.org/public-inbox-v1-format.txt
+
+By storing (and optionally) exposing an inbox via git, it is
+fast and efficient to host and mirror public-inboxes.
+
+Traditional mailing lists use the "push" model. For readers,
+that requires commitment to subscribe and effort to unsubscribe.
+New readers may also have difficulty following existing
+discussions if archives do not expose Message-ID and References
+headers. List server admins are also burdened with delivery
+failures.
+
+public-inbox uses the "pull" model. Casual readers may
+follow the list via NNTP, IMAP, Atom feed or HTML archives.
+
+If a reader loses interest, they simply stop following.
+
+Since we use git, mirrors are easy-to-setup, and lists are
+easy-to-relocate to different mail addresses without losing
+or splitting archives.
+
+_Anybody_ may also setup a delivery-only mailing list server to
+replay a public-inbox git archive to subscribers via SMTP.
Features
--------
-* anybody may participate via plain-text email to the public address
-* stores email in git, readers have a full archive of the mailing list
-* Atom feed allows casual readers to follow via feed reader
-* Mail user-agent (MUA) users may use Maildir, mbox(5) and/or IMAP locally
+
+* anybody may participate via plain-text email
+
+* stores email in git, readers may have a complete archive of the inbox
+
+* Atom feed, IMAP, NNTP allows casual readers to follow via local tools
+
* uses only well-documented and easy-to-implement data formats
-Requirements (Atom, read-only client)
--------------------------------------
-* any feed reader capable of following Atom feeds
+Try it out now, see https://try.public-inbox.org/
+
+Requirements for reading:
+
+* any software capable of IMAP, NNTP or following Atom feeds
+
+Any basic web browser will do for the HTML archives.
+We primarily develop on w3m to maximize accessibility.
Requirements (participant)
--------------------------
-* ssoma - http://ssoma.public-inbox.org/INSTALL
+
* any MUA which may send text-only emails ("git send-email" works!)
+ Users are strongly encouraged to use the "reply-all" feature of
+ their mailers to reduce the impact of a public-inbox as a
+ single point of failure.
+
+* The HTTP web interface exposes mboxrd files, and NNTP clients often
+ feature reply-by-email functionality
+
* participants do not need to install public-inbox, only server admins
Requirements (server)
---------------------
-See INSTALL
+
+See https://public-inbox.org/INSTALL
Hacking
-------
-Source code is available via git:
- git clone git://bogomips.org/public-inbox
+AGPL source code is available via git:
+
+ git clone https://public-inbox.org/public-inbox.git
+ git clone https://repo.or.cz/public-inbox.git
+ torsocks git clone http://7fh6tueqddpjyxjmgtdiueylzoqt6pt7hec3pukyptlmohoowvhde4yd.onion/public-inbox.git
+ torsocks git clone http://4uok3hntl7oi7b4uf4rtfwefqeexfzil2w6kgk2jn5z2f764irre7byd.onion/public-inbox
See below for contact info.
Contact
-------
+
We are happy to see feedback of all types via plain-text email.
public-inbox discussion is self-hosting on public-inbox.org
Please send comments, user/developer discussion, patches, bug reports,
and pull requests to our public-inbox address at:
- bugs@public-inbox.org
+ meta@public-inbox.org
Please Cc: all recipients when replying as we do not require
subscription. This also makes it easier to rope in folks of
tangentially related projects we depend on (e.g. git developers
on git@vger.kernel.org).
-You can subscribe via ssoma(1), LISTNAME is a name of your choosing:
+The archives are readable via IMAP, NNTP or HTTP:
- URL=git://git.public-inbox.org/public-inbox
- LISTNAME=public-inbox
+ nntps://news.public-inbox.org/inbox.comp.mail.public-inbox.meta
+ imaps://news.public-inbox.org/inbox.comp.mail.public-inbox.meta.0
+ https://public-inbox.org/meta/
- # to initialize a maildir (this may be a new or existing maildir,
- # ssoma will not touch existing messages)
- # If you prefer mbox, use "ssoma add mbox ..." instead
- ssoma add $LISTNAME $URL maildir:/path/to/maildir/
+AUTH=ANONYMOUS is supported for IMAP, but any username + password works
- # read with your favorite MUA (only using mutt as an example)
- mutt -f /path/to/maildir # (or /path/to/mbox)
+And as Tor hidden services:
- # to keep your mbox or maildir up-to-date, periodically run the following:
- ssoma sync $LISTNAME
+ http://4uok3hntl7oi7b4uf4rtfwefqeexfzil2w6kgk2jn5z2f764irre7byd.onion/meta/
+ nntp://4uok3hntl7oi7b4uf4rtfwefqeexfzil2w6kgk2jn5z2f764irre7byd.onion/inbox.comp.mail.public-inbox.meta
+ imap://4uok3hntl7oi7b4uf4rtfwefqeexfzil2w6kgk2jn5z2f764irre7byd.onion/inbox.comp.mail.public-inbox.meta.0
- # your MUA may modify and delete messages from the maildir or mbox,
- # this does not affect ssoma functionality at all
+You may also clone all messages via git:
- # to sync all your ssoma subscriptions
- ssoma sync
+ git clone --mirror https://public-inbox.org/meta/
+ torsocks git clone --mirror http://4uok3hntl7oi7b4uf4rtfwefqeexfzil2w6kgk2jn5z2f764irre7byd.onion/meta/
Anti-Spam
---------
+
The maintainer of public-inbox has found SpamAssassin a good tool for
filtering his personal mail, and it will be the default spam filtering
tool in public-inbox.
-Readers may also use a custom mail-delivery-agent for delivery to enable
-spam filtering by having ssoma deliver to a command via pipe.
-
-There is unlikely to be any tool which is 100% accurate at classifying
-spam, so it is possible to remove messages using the ssoma-rm(1) tool
-in ssoma.
+See https://public-inbox.org/dc-dlvr-spam-flow.html for more info.
Content Filtering
-----------------
-To discourage phishing, web bugs (tracking), viruses and other nuisances,
-only plain-text content is allowed and non-text content is stripped.
-This saves I/O bandwidth and storage, which is important as
-entire mail archives are shared between clients.
+
+To discourage phishing, trackers, exploits and other nuisances,
+only plain-text emails are allowed and HTML is rejected by default.
+This improves accessibility, and saves bandwidth and storage
+as mail is archived forever.
As of the 2010s, successful online social networks and forums are the
ones which heavily restrict users formatting options; so public-inbox
Copyright
---------
-Copyright 2013, Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net> and all contributors.
-License: AGPLv3 or later <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>
+
+Copyright 2013-2021 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
+License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by
GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
-along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+Additional permission under GNU GPL version 3 section 7:
+
+ If you modify this program, or any covered work, by linking or
+ combining it with the OpenSSL project's OpenSSL library (or a
+ modified version of that library), containing parts covered by the
+ terms of the OpenSSL or SSLeay licenses, the copyright holder(s)
+ grants you additional permission to convey the resulting work.
+ Corresponding Source for a non-source form of such a combination
+ shall include the source code for the parts of OpenSSL used as well
+ as that of the covered work.