-public-inbox - shared mailboxes via git for public discussion
--------------------------------------------------------------
-
-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 - an "archives first" approach to mailing lists
+------------------------------------------------------------
+public-inbox implements the sharing of an email inbox via git to
+complement or replace traditional mailing lists. Readers may
+subscribe to a mailing list using ssoma[1] (a git-wrapper) to
+import email from a git repository into an IMAP folder, Maildir,
+or mbox. Readers may also read via Atom feeds and HTML archives.
+
+public-inbox spawned around three main ideas:
+
+* Publically accessible and archived communication is essential to
+ Free and Open Source development.
+* Contributing to Free and Open Source projects should not require the
+ use of non-Free/non-Open Source services or software.
+* Graphical user interfaces should not be required for text-based
+ communication.
+
+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.
+the inbox 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.
+Traditional mailing lists use the "push" model. For readers, this
+requires commitment to subscribe and 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 may be
+burdened with delivery failures.
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.
+loses interest, they simply stop syncing. Since we use 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
+[1] http://ssoma.public-inbox.org/
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
+* anybody may participate via plain-text email
+* stores email in git, readers have a complete archive of the inbox
* Atom feed allows casual readers to follow via feed reader
* Mail user-agent (MUA) users may use Maildir, mbox(5) and/or IMAP locally
* uses only well-documented and easy-to-implement data formats
+Try it out now, see http://try.public-inbox.org/
+
Requirements (Atom, read-only client)
-------------------------------------
* any feed reader capable of following Atom feeds
+Any basic web browser will do for the HTML archives.
+
Requirements (participant)
--------------------------
-* ssoma - http://ssoma.public-inbox.org/INSTALL
+* ssoma - http://ssoma.public-inbox.org/
* any MUA which may send text-only emails ("git send-email" works!)
* participants do not need to install public-inbox, only server admins
Requirements (server)
---------------------
-See INSTALL
+See http://public-inbox.org/INSTALL
Hacking
-------
Source code is available via git:
- git clone git://bogomips.org/public-inbox
+ git clone git://80x24.org/public-inbox
See below for contact info.
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:
+You may subscribe via ssoma(1), LISTNAME is a name of your choosing:
- URL=git://git.public-inbox.org/public-inbox
+ URL=git://public-inbox.org/meta
LISTNAME=public-inbox
# to initialize a maildir (this may be a new or existing maildir,
# your MUA may modify and delete messages from the maildir or mbox,
# this does not affect ssoma functionality at all
- # to sync all your ssoma subscriptions
- ssoma sync
+ # to sync all your ssoma subscriptions via cronjob
+ ssoma sync --cron
+
+HTML inbox archives are available: http://public-inbox.org/meta/
Anti-Spam
---------
Copyright
---------
-Copyright 2013, Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net> and all contributors.
+Copyright 2013-2015 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
License: AGPLv3 or later <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify