Mailpile: Let’s take email back • Hacker News Board

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#81

Post by HerraBRE » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 4:39 PM UTC

barend wrote: post #45

HerraBRE wrote: post #3

Bjarni here, lead dev. Happy to answer any questions.

Your introductory text and video mention the NSA and PGP. The PGP system has been around for a long time without getting any mainstream traction. There are numerous reasons for this failure, but the general complexity of public key crypto has to be one of them. On the project page you write > An intuitive, modern user interface makes strong security accessible to everyone. Can you share a bit more about the way you e…

Big, big topic. I suggest you follow our Twitter account or something, we'll probably be blogging about this later on in the campaign.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#82

Post by belorn » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 4:39 PM UTC

nhangen wrote: post #66

I'm in the crowdfunding business, so I feel strange saying this, but I'm really turned off by this model of 'pay us in advance for developing a product that hasn't been market tested or validated,' especially when asking for a sum as large as is $100,000. What happened to building something and selling it? According to the campaign page, the need is so great because: "We're asking for a lot of money, so of course you…

> What happened to building something and selling it?

Since they are already providing it for free to those who need it, and producing at as free software, selling it as a finished product is unlikely.

> If you were truly concerned about online privacy, you'd build it anyway.

Many people do altruistic work during their free time. crowdfunding means you can do the same work, but not be limited by what scraps of time that exist after work.

The extremely few people in the world that would quit their job to do altruistic work is few. They are so few that almost every time it happens, it get posted here as news.

If I made a poll, asking how many people here cared strongly about something in the world, I would get close to 99% hands that said yes. If I then asked how many of those people would agree to quit work to work altruistic on that subject, how many hands would I see?

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#83

Post by lnanek2 » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 4:41 PM UTC

Thumbnail images under the interface section are coming up broken.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#84

Post by gemma » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 4:42 PM UTC

nhangen wrote: post #66

I'm in the crowdfunding business, so I feel strange saying this, but I'm really turned off by this model of 'pay us in advance for developing a product that hasn't been market tested or validated,' especially when asking for a sum as large as is $100,000. What happened to building something and selling it? According to the campaign page, the need is so great because: "We're asking for a lot of money, so of course you…

> I'm really turned off by this model of 'pay us in advance for developing a product that hasn't been market tested or validated'

Isn't that the whole premise behind a huge chunk of the projects on indiegogo and Kickstarter? "I want to make a cool thing, but I can't afford to quit my day job; please pay me up front"?

I mean, I'm truly concerned about online privacy, but there are several barriers standing between me and my solution--not the least of which is the ability to eat and shield myself from the elements while crafting said solution. How is what these folks are asking any different from pitching a business plan to a VC? Sure, if you're going to a VC it's expected you'll actually have a business plan, but the function is the same: Convince people with resources that what you're doing is worthwhile and achievable, so they'll give their resources to you.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#85

Post by yapcguy » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 4:46 PM UTC

nhangen wrote: post #66

I'm in the crowdfunding business, so I feel strange saying this, but I'm really turned off by this model of 'pay us in advance for developing a product that hasn't been market tested or validated,' especially when asking for a sum as large as is $100,000. What happened to building something and selling it? According to the campaign page, the need is so great because: "We're asking for a lot of money, so of course you…

There is a thorny issue with kickstarting open-source projects like this.

Suppose a third-party developer can make a major contribution to the project, to solve a nasty bug or add a technically challenging feature.

How does that developer get paid? How is their contribution valued?

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#86

Post by jerrac » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 4:47 PM UTC

HerraBRE wrote: post #75

jerrac wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any plans for .deb/.rpm repositories?

Of course, but that's months away. We gotta write the software first!

'Course it's months away. :) I've noticed that some applications don't offer their own repositories. So I've been left with either relying on the distributions out of date packages, or installing the application manually. That's why I asked. I'd rather use your repos so that I can keep it up to date.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#87

Post by ChuckMcM » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 4:49 PM UTC

ptype wrote: post #77

nhangen wrote: post #66

I'm in the crowdfunding business, so I feel strange saying this, but I'm really turned off by this model of 'pay us in advance for developing a product that hasn't been market tested or validated,' especially when asking for a sum as large as is $100,000. What happened to building something and selling it? According to the campaign page, the need is so great because: "We're asking for a lot of money, so of course you…

Actually, I don't think they are looking to build a business out of this? From the web site: "This is the Mailpile business model. As long as members of our community are willing to fund development (we will ask you to renew your membership in a years' time), we will dedicate ourselves to Mailpile and build the secure web-mail client you want."

This and the parent combined are the interesting bit.

So this is exactly the Richard Stallman model of software. Pay people to develop it, don't charge anything for the software and give away the source.

There is no economic incentive for the donors (they might get a mail program, might not, but they will never get their money back or a return on that money.)

I suppose rms originally imagined that someone like the mailpile people would take the money they were given to create mailpile and give it to some other developer to create the tools they need. However, as we see in this campaign, all the money they get will go toward feeding, housing, and insuring themselves. (wait till they learn about payroll taxes, that will make them fiscal conservatives in a hurry :-)

Like the parent comment I can see how this works in the "old" world (make a company, product, sell it, rinse and repeat) but am curious to see if it can work in this other way.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#88

Post by rocky1138 » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 4:50 PM UTC

AxisOfEval wrote: post #22

Noble goals. With all the NSA action, this is something whose time has come. Where do I donate?

I get what you're saying, but what's to stop them from monitoring the transmission and how can you be sure the receiver of your sent email is running a secure email as well?

I don't think this does much to stop snooping.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#89

Post by tspike » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 4:51 PM UTC

replax wrote: post #67

tspike wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding your addendum, if you really view the people as incompetent idiots, I'd argue you're not all that interested in winning them as friends. In any case, just give the person the information they need without attacking them -- they won't feel defensive and they'll probably feel pretty stupid on their own. For bonus points, try to empathize and think about something stupid you once did -- surely you've done some…

Sorry for the off-topic what i understood from reading the book making friends and influencing people, i thought that the "friends" he refers to are Customers/Business contacts. which is often a lot off from our definition of friends (or at least mine...)

Yup, the book clearly has a business slant, but the thesis is that you gain business influence by being a decent human being, cultivating your sense of empathy, and developing genuine relationships with people.

The distinction is pretty blurry.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#90

Post by rsync » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 4:55 PM UTC

HerraBRE wrote: post #70

rpdillon wrote: post #59

This is exactly what I've been looking for! It seems the product is aimed at technical users (at least initially), though there are some technical details I didn't see in the video, description or FAQ: - This is an MUA, correct? Based on the features on the project page, it sounds like MailPile will not act as an MTA or MDA, and is predominantly interfacing with mbox/maildir. I see features for IMAP and POP3 on the r…

Thanks! The idea is you run Mailpile on a machine you control (it is an MUA), either your laptop (and connect to localhost) or a home server like a plug computer or something like that - basically somewhere where you feel comfortable storing your secret keys. And yes, API access to mail is something we already support, every "command" can return either HTML, plain text or JSON. Probably XML to come as well. We'll hav…

Yes, this is also something I very much want.

I personally use (al)pine over SSH, so I don't need this ... my email is already on my own mailserver and I already access it over a secure channel, etc.

But my wife ... she's not going to put up with pine. So then I run a pop daemon. And she pops from gmail. And her email is in third party hands, etc.

If there were a decent web mail client, I could turn off popd, one less open port, and access only over SSL. Which I would hide with port-knocking, of course. I can teach her port-knocking, right ?