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authorEric Wong <e@80x24.org>2014-04-09 05:46:59 +0000
committerEric Wong <e@80x24.org>2014-04-09 06:08:07 +0000
commit394558721dd0c27f71fc6605c009ea07d37ccee8 (patch)
tree90331a6562c2fad0b730d942638fdbeef21ca33c /Documentation
parent7a42c9451400e20dcc6fbef21f88a68da16aa708 (diff)
downloadpublic-inbox-394558721dd0c27f71fc6605c009ea07d37ccee8.tar.gz
Hopefully a little easier to find for clients and not admins running
servers.  While we're at it, expand design_notes.
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/design_notes.txt52
-rw-r--r--Documentation/philosophy.txt13
2 files changed, 46 insertions, 19 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/design_notes.txt b/Documentation/design_notes.txt
index e7e6fff7..9666664c 100644
--- a/Documentation/design_notes.txt
+++ b/Documentation/design_notes.txt
@@ -1,17 +1,5 @@
-Design notes and philosophy
----------------------------
-
-public-inbox spawned around some basic ideas
---------------------------------------------
-
-* Public, non-real-time, archivable communication is essential to
-  Free and Open Source software 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.
+Design notes
+------------
 
 Challenges to running normal mailing lists
 ------------------------------------------
@@ -33,8 +21,10 @@ Use existing infrastructure
 
 * public-inbox uses SMTP for posting.  Posting a message to a public-inbox
   instance is no different than sending a message to any _open_ mailing
-  list.  Any existing spam filtering on an SMTP server is also effective
-  on public-inbox.
+  list.
+
+* Existing spam filtering on an SMTP server is also effective on
+  public-inbox.
 
 * readers may continue using use their choice of mail clients and
   mailbox formats, only learning a few commands of the ssoma(1) tool
@@ -68,7 +58,7 @@ Why email?
   list.
 
 * Email is already the de-facto form of communication in many Free Software
-  communities.
+  communities..
 
 * Fallback/transition to private email and other lists, in case the
   public-inbox host becomes unavailable, users may still directly email
@@ -79,12 +69,36 @@ Why git?
 
 * git is distributed and robust while being both fast and
   space-efficient with text data.  NNTP was considered, but does not
-  support compression and places no guarantees on data/transport
+  support delta-compression and places no guarantees on data/transport
   integrity.  However, an NNTP gateway (read-only?) is possible.
 
 * As of 2014, git is widely used and known to nearly all Free Software
   developers.  For non-developers it is packaged for all major GNU/Linux
-  and *BSD distributions.
+  and *BSD distributions.  NNTP is not as widely-used nowadays.
+
+Laziness
+--------
+
+* A list server being turned into an SMTP spam relay and being
+  blacklisted while an admin is asleep is scary.
+  Sidestep that entirely by having clients pull.
+
+* Eric has a great Maildir+inotify-based Bayes training setup
+  going back many years.  Document, integrate and publicize it for
+  public-inbox usage, encouraging other admins to use it (it works
+  as long as admins read their public-inbox).
+
+* Custom, difficult-for-Bayes requires custom anti-spam rules.
+  We may steal rules from the Debian listmasters:
+  svn://anonscm.debian.org/pkg-listmaster
+
+* Full archives are easily distributable with git, so somebody else
+  can take over the list if we give up.  Anybody may also run an SMTP
+  notifier/delivery service based on the archives.
+
+* Avoids bikeshedding about web UI decisions, GUI-lovers can write their
+  own GUI-friendly interfaces (HTML or native) based on public archives.
+  Maybe one day integrated MUAs will feature a built-in git protocol support!
 
 Web notes
 ---------
diff --git a/Documentation/philosophy.txt b/Documentation/philosophy.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..44b21f6f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/philosophy.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+public-inbox spawned around the following ideas
+-----------------------------------------------
+
+* Public, non-real-time, archivable communication is essential to
+  Free and Open Source software 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.
+
+See http://public-inbox.org/design_notes.txt for our implementation notes.