From 394558721dd0c27f71fc6605c009ea07d37ccee8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Eric Wong Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2014 05:46:59 +0000 Subject: doc: split out philosophy to a different page Hopefully a little easier to find for clients and not admins running servers. While we're at it, expand design_notes. --- Documentation/design_notes.txt | 52 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------------- 1 file changed, 33 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-) (limited to 'Documentation/design_notes.txt') 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 --------- -- cgit v1.2.3-24-ge0c7