dovecot - Feb 2013 - Public free (libre) mailbox hosting service for everybody!

Hello e-mail software developers and users!

I'd like to ask all of you a question. And of course hear relevant
opinion.

I've been using free software happily for a few years, and I found
free/open source alternatives for many popular proprietary tools such as
Facebook, Dropbox, Micro$oft Windows & Office, Youtube, Skype and many
many others. Some of the alternatives are probably known to some of you,
while others are still unknown to many.

But I couldn't find a replacement to mailbox hosting. I'm using a Gmail
mailbox and I hate it. So many free and open source mail servers and I
still use Gmail, a closed-source service (which also probably tracks all
my data, including Google searches I do, and uses it for all kinds of
statistics and advertising, but that's another issue). So I asked
myself, why is there no mailbox hosting service which respects user
freedom?

I sent an e-mail to the Free Software Foundation, and got a suggestion
to ask all of you: do you know any free (libre) mail server out there?
If you do, please inform me, and the whole free software community,
developers and users.

I couldn't find any. If nobody else finds any either, the plan is to
start a new server. There are so many server tools and programs, like
the ones you use and develop. It's just like hosting a Git repository or
videos of pictures for the masses. We can do it with e-mail too.

Q: Why don't I start my own personal server?
A: I'm a programmer and I can do it - with some effort, but I can. The
problem is not me. The problem is that all the non-programmer and
non-technical users can't. And they shouldn't. We tech people can, and
should, run such servers for everybody. For all users who want their
basic freedoms respected.

Another question to tech people: I'm not an expert in e-mail software,
so I'm not really sure setting up a server is as easy as all other
online services we get, such as Diaspora (facebook replacement),
MediaGoblin (Youtube replacement), Gitorious (git repo hosting). Is
there a technical issue preventing people from running a mail server, or
it's just a matter of having enough money to run it, and the necessary
technical skills (which many of you probably have).

If it's possible, we'll do it. Also, if users had to pay for such a
service, it would be okay. I don't mind paying for my free software
stack. I'd actually find it a way to contribute back to the people and
projects which deserve it. The point is not money; such a service can
get funds. The point if FREEDOM.

Waiting for response and opinions from you, my fellow free software
community members,
Anatoly Krasner
Free software enthusiast/activist
Israel

On 28 Feb 2013 08:26, "?????? ?????" <tombackton at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> I've written a response to someone else, explaining some issues you
> mention here.
>
> A little note on UI: we don't need web UI. It's a good addition but
> unnecessary for the beginning. There are many free-software desktop mail
> clients. Some are big and complicated, but some are very simple and very
> easy to use, just like Gmail is. So UI is not a critical issue right
> now, we just need to be able to easily configure a mail client, e.g.
> Evolution, to work with the server.
>
> And it's great to hear people like the idea and want to help! With hard
> work and cooperation, everything is possible!
>
> - Anatoly Krasner
>
> On ?', 2013-02-27 at 18:39 -0500, Bennett Todd wrote:
> > The operational cost is non-zero. Besides hardware, which must include
> > backups, and enough physical diversity to offer availability, an email
> > server is an attractive nuisance; spammers and other criminals
> > constantly attempt sabotage and burglary, and it takes ongoing
> > manpower to attempt to hold them temporarily at bay.
> >
> > And unless you put hard caps on message sizes, people will use their
> > mailboxes as backup drives, or just email their vacation movies to
> > family, and you'll be buying drives, and hence replacing them,
often.
> >
> > I love the idea, I'm fond of running mailservers myself. But
I've gone
> > Google.
> >
> > As for software, I won't pitch my favorite components to this wide
> > list, but I know how to find all the pieces I'd need except the
> > webmail front-end for the utterly non-technical.
> >
> > If you limited the scope to IMAP and SMTP, both SSL authenticated, it
> > wouldn't be too hard to spec out.
> >
> > Host on AWS EC3 or the like, then find an affordable solution to spam,
> > and you can sell to anyone who doesn't expect their email to be
> > private from governments.
> >
> > Anybody know of a well-engineered and maintained SSL library?
> >
cesmail.net anyone?

Simon

On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 23:11:32 +0200
?????? ????? <tombackton at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello e-mail software developers and users!
> 
> I'd like to ask all of you a question. And of course hear relevant
> opinion.
> 
> I've been using free software happily for a few years, and I found
> free/open source alternatives for many popular proprietary tools such
> as Facebook, Dropbox, Micro$oft Windows & Office, Youtube, Skype and
> many many others. Some of the alternatives are probably known to some
> of you, while others are still unknown to many.
> 
> But I couldn't find a replacement to mailbox hosting. I'm using a
> Gmail mailbox and I hate it. So many free and open source mail
> servers and I still use Gmail, a closed-source service (which also
> probably tracks all my data, including Google searches I do, and uses
> it for all kinds of statistics and advertising, but that's another
> issue). So I asked myself, why is there no mailbox hosting service
> which respects user freedom?
> 
> I sent an e-mail to the Free Software Foundation, and got a suggestion
> to ask all of you: do you know any free (libre) mail server out there?
> If you do, please inform me, and the whole free software community,
> developers and users.
> 
> I couldn't find any. If nobody else finds any either, the plan is to
> start a new server. There are so many server tools and programs, like
> the ones you use and develop. It's just like hosting a Git repository
> or videos of pictures for the masses. We can do it with e-mail too.
> 
> Q: Why don't I start my own personal server?
> A: I'm a programmer and I can do it - with some effort, but I can. The
> problem is not me. The problem is that all the non-programmer and
> non-technical users can't. And they shouldn't. We tech people can,
and
> should, run such servers for everybody. For all users who want their
> basic freedoms respected.
> 
> Another question to tech people: I'm not an expert in e-mail software,
> so I'm not really sure setting up a server is as easy as all other
> online services we get, such as Diaspora (facebook replacement),
> MediaGoblin (Youtube replacement), Gitorious (git repo hosting). Is
> there a technical issue preventing people from running a mail server,
> or it's just a matter of having enough money to run it, and the
> necessary technical skills (which many of you probably have).
> 
> If it's possible, we'll do it. Also, if users had to pay for such a
> service, it would be okay. I don't mind paying for my free software
> stack. I'd actually find it a way to contribute back to the people and
> projects which deserve it. The point is not money; such a service can
> get funds. The point if FREEDOM.
> 
> Waiting for response and opinions from you, my fellow free software
> community members,
> Anatoly Krasner
> Free software enthusiast/activist
> Israel
> 
> 
There's a group of people in Sweden that are maintaining a mail server
for users (they do charge a fee, though) that have quite decent
policies etc.

They're also using disk encryption on their server (although, I can't
remember how well that is implemented, but it does mean when they
reboot server someone has to go over there to enter password or
something similar).

You can have a look at their website:

https://fripost.org/index.en.html

Best regards

-- 
Branko Majic
Jabber: branko at majic.rs
Please use only Free formats when sending attachments to me.

?????? ?????
?????: branko at majic.rs
????? ??? ?? ??????? ?????? ????????? ? ????????? ?????????.
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