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author | Eric Wong <e@yhbt.net> | 2020-04-07 08:01:36 +0000 |
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committer | Eric Wong <e@yhbt.net> | 2020-04-13 21:44:21 +0000 |
commit | 68abdb734d9c1613527041a489947436b65a3a15 (patch) | |
tree | ea6f06b5d98b3707079cb889f88e534e92841d49 | |
parent | b25fe36fbbfa193ba9b81d4ae28f347b7fc813ff (diff) | |
download | public-inbox-68abdb734d9c1613527041a489947436b65a3a15.tar.gz |
Not new ideas, just gathering thoughts.
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/reproducibility.txt | 29 |
1 files changed, 29 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/reproducibility.txt b/Documentation/reproducibility.txt new file mode 100644 index 00000000..4e56ada4 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/reproducibility.txt @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +reproducibility => forkability +------------------------------ + +The ability to fork a project is a checks and balances +system for free software projects. Reproducibility is key +to forkability since every mirror is potential fork. + +git makes the code history of projects fully reproducible. +public-inbox uses git to make the email history of projects +reproducible. + +Keeping all communications as email ensures the full history +of the entire project can be mirrored by anyone with the +resources to do so. Compact, low-complexity data requires +less resources to mirror, so sticking with plain-text +ensures more parties can mirror and potentially fork the +project with all its data. + +Any private or irreproducible data is a barrier to forking. +These include mailing list subscriber information and +non-federated user identities. The "pull" subscriber model +of NNTP and Atom feeds combined with open-to-all posting +means there's no need for private data. + +If these things make power hungry project leaders and admins +uncomfortable, good. That was the point. It's how checks +and balances ought to work. + +Comments, corrections, etc welcome: meta@public-inbox.org |