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Mailpile: Let’s take email back

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Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#181

Post by claudius »

OGC wrote: post #158
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…

> The server-side code for MailPile must have access to my secret key, correct? Dealbreaker right there.

There is no possibility to build this in a web app without the server having access to the key. The only way to get this is by some (currently) non-standard support in the browser, e.g. by an extension – given the auto-update functionality of most such extensions, this is the same game again.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#182

Post by lancewiggs »

andrewcooke wrote: post #23
marquis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fantastic. I didn't see any information about this on your page so you might want to make this clearer (I assure you I read it first before commenting, then went back and saw the Fork on Github ribbon, the only indication). By subscription I mean that I am happy to support an open source project with regular funding. Initial funds from Indiegogo are not sufficient to maintain a long-term service and we'd be he…

there's a big red line across the top right corner pointing to github (and licencing info there). there's another link to github near the end. apologies for a previous post that used strong language, but you really can't have looked very hard. (you know, i just read chapter 2 of 'how to win friends and influence people' which tells me that criticising people never works because they simply work harder to justify them…

If we accept, and we should, that there are no "incompetent idiots", then what's happening is poor communication.

Working to fix that results in better usability for a website and better readability for text - and that benefits everyone.

In my case, I saw the Github reference, and got the open source bit, but had no idea how to contribute. Where was the hulking big green "contribute now" button that allowed me to enter a credit card number and hit go? Going back I see that this was through a black button on the top of the page. But for me it's now too late as the site has made me feel stupid and I, and I suspect others, am significantly less likely to play.

Perhaps that's a timely reminder to re-read Krug's "Don't make me Think".

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#183

Post by superchink »

rdouble wrote: post #176
bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4166/month is only $50k/year. It's easy for software developers to make more than $100k/year, especially in the bay area.

Sadly, in the Bay Area $4166 is almost exactly what an exempt employee making $100K actually takes home every month.

Yes, but if they are collecting $100k to fund their work on this project over the next year, they will still be paying taxes ON TOP of that.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#184

Post by nimblegorilla »

nhangen wrote: post #142
saraid216 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused as to what you imagine "meet them halfway" actually entails.

Ask for enough money to have say 3-6 months of resources, which would force them to figure out pricing/business economics before the money runs out, and forces them to invest in the idea as much as their backers do. First reaction for me was: 'Wow, this is awesome, and I'm looking for something like this. How much do they need? Wow, 100k to build a mail app? No thanks.' I get that this is a free product and is open s…

The majority of backers are paying $23. That's not even 15 minutes of software development time. I fail to comprehend how backers are investing as much into the idea as the developers.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#185

Post by jongraehl »

nhangen wrote: post #142
saraid216 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused as to what you imagine "meet them halfway" actually entails.

Ask for enough money to have say 3-6 months of resources, which would force them to figure out pricing/business economics before the money runs out, and forces them to invest in the idea as much as their backers do. First reaction for me was: 'Wow, this is awesome, and I'm looking for something like this. How much do they need? Wow, 100k to build a mail app? No thanks.' I get that this is a free product and is open s…

Why do you think it should cost less than 100k to build a mail app?

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#186

Post by rdouble »

superchink wrote: post #183
rdouble wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, in the Bay Area $4166 is almost exactly what an exempt employee making $100K actually takes home every month.

Yes, but if they are collecting $100k to fund their work on this project over the next year, they will still be paying taxes ON TOP of that.

Ya, just had a flashback to a former paycheck...

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#187

Post by unclebucknasty »

nhangen wrote: post #156
unclebucknasty wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear what you're saying, and I was initially tempted to feel the same way, until I caught myself. I think your take on this is a function of our indoctrination into a particular form of capitalist mindset. We don't reward what's of value to society. We reward what can be sold. It's skewed. In addition, there is this idea that we should be cogs in the machine as kind of a de facto life goal. Get an education and go…

You could be right, but I also wonder if option A, B, or C are great filters for weeding out those that are not ready/determined?

I don't know about that. I think we're having a discussion about how things are vs. how they could be.

I mean, why is it the mindset that we must endure some arbitrary and unrelated pain in order to pursue our passions? Isn't this part of the problem?

Is the need to make a living in a society that values only what is profitable really a meaningful test of one's mettle or determination? Am I more ready to pursue my business/project simply because I hustle and hold down a day job in order to eat? Or, am I simply distracted and spending only half my time pursuing my project, and therefore less efficient and less likely to complete it?

Our tendency to believe that one must struggle in the prescribed way to prove one's self is a product of that same indoctrination. It's just how things are now. But, what if more people could make a living pursuing passions and interests that benefit society? I think they would be even more determined, because it is their own passion/cause/etc.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#188

Post by Freaky »

HerraBRE wrote: post #39
andrewcooke wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how does the search work? is there a separate database? i use mairix (which does construct a separate database) and it's pretty damn awesome. have you looked at that? are re-inventing something worse? sometimes it is useful to search just the body. and mairix works fine with a huge volume of mail. also, getmail is python and does pop and imap downloads, so could be used there. [otherwise, this seems awesome and if i…

It is a custom search engine, written in Python. It works surprisingly well, most queries are answered under 200ms and tens of milliseconds are common once caches are warm.

Hundreds of milliseconds across how large an index?

My email corpus is on the order of ten million messages. Needless to say, seeing the words "can index roughly four messages per second" made me cringe rather hard.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#189

Post by Freaky »

gcr wrote: post #127

How is this any different from every other desktop mail client (eg. Thunderbird, Inky, Evolution, Notmuch, Sup, Mutt, ...)? What makes this better?

notmuch isn't really a client so much as a backend. A better question might be why this isn't using/building upon it.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#190

Post by weirdkid »

This reminds me of Zoe. http://zoe.sourceforge.net

Back in 2001 or 2002, I was following the progress of Zoe, what I thought to be a very promising new approach to email archives. It kept your email in mbox or eml files, used Lucene for indexing and search and then provided a web interface on an embedded web server.

The Zoe project is no longer active (the homepage is dead and the files are gone), but this MailPile sounds very much like it. Almost exactly like it. I hope it does better.

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