From 337070335cfec83561aa8254aaed1994f99e4c06 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Eric Wong Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 08:20:42 +0000 Subject: doc: fold philosophy into the README Hopefully this makes the scope and intent of the project clearer. --- README | 74 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------------------------- 1 file changed, 43 insertions(+), 31 deletions(-) (limited to 'README') diff --git a/README b/README index d1c17766..f12c1cba 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -1,36 +1,54 @@ -public-inbox - shared mailboxes via git for public discussion -------------------------------------------------------------- +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. + +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. + +Features +-------- + +* 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 -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. 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. @@ -39,18 +57,12 @@ a public-inbox git archive to subscribers via SMTP. [1] http://ssoma.public-inbox.org/README -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 -* uses only well-documented and easy-to-implement data formats - 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 -- cgit v1.2.3-24-ge0c7