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

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#131

Post by HerraBRE » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 7:51 PM UTC

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?

This is a desktop mail client. It is also a web-mail you can run on a server somewhere if you so choose. It depends on how it is deployed.

Contrasting Mailpile with other tools, one difference is that the basic design is that of a search engine, not a tool for reading mail from folders. Most current desktop mail clients are built on top of a bad paradigm, in my opinion.

Another exciting thing about this model, is that since the UI is a website (of sorts), we can leverage the collective experience and creativity of the web design community. That is a much, much larger pool of talent than UI designers who know C++ or Objective C, or whatever.

Finally, making the app a web server means you get an API to interact with your e-mail almost for free.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#132

Post by guelo » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 7:54 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #82

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 t…

Funny, it didn't make any news when I quit my job and started working on several non-money-making tech projects.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#133

Post by gcr » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 7:55 PM UTC

srid68 wrote: post #69

It is very good you are attacking this problem, but is this the right way to attack the email problem? According to Paul Graham frightening startup ideas http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html , email is a bad ToDo list, How are you going to implement a better Todo list? I have created a alpha prototype which attacks these problems conceptually, namely, Message Classification, Message Sharing, Bidirectional Messagi…

I'm not sure about that idea. A tongue-in-cheek evaluation: http://pastebin.com/Xf1RffNV

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#134

Post by Amadou » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 8:01 PM UTC

weaksauce wrote: post #106

yapcguy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's not all that thorny really; you don't get any money from your third party patches. The indiegogo funding is for three man years of funded development work split between two men. It's opensource so you are free to help out if you want, just don't expect to be paid.

I seem to recall a recent study that suggested paying some people explicitly for their open-source work (versus scratching-an-itch) had the effect of discouraging contributions from everyone else. Unfortunately my google-fu is too weak right now to find a reference.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#135

Post by javascriptgod » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 8:15 PM UTC

not another shitty mail service

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#136

Post by belorn » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 8:29 PM UTC

guelo wrote: post #132

belorn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

Funny, it didn't make any news when I quit my job and started working on several non-money-making tech projects.

Did you write about it? Your profile don't provide any links/information, and it would be very interesting to see what project you are working on.

Maybe write a blog post about it and submit the link? Alternative, do something like (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5332317).

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#137

Post by ivanbrussik » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 8:34 PM UTC

i like it, and im willing to pay $5. to make it happen

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#138

Post by ChuckMcM » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 8:35 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #114

ChuckMcM wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ma…

I don't see why would this be the "Stallman model of software", and not any of the other business models that don't involve selling users proprietary software or closed computers. In fact, rms himself has sold copies of Emacs in the past.

I called it that because I first heard about the model that one should pay for the creation of software but not its use in the "GNU Manifesto" [1] which Richard wrote.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#139

Post by mtgx » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 8:37 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…

I'm not sure how you plan on doing it, but I think you should tie everyone's public keys to their names/id's. So let's say you know someone who uses Mailpile. You shouldn't have to ask him what's his key. You should just "enable PGP" (if it's not default, though maybe it should be), and he should just get the e-mail.

So try to do the key management as automatic and "out of the way" for users as possible. That's the biggest hurdle with using PGP right now.

Re: Mailpile: Let’s take email back

#140

Post by nhangen » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 8:44 PM UTC

nonrecursive wrote: post #123

nhangen wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally get it, but why not share some of the risk with your supporters and meet them halfway? Asking for a full (decent) salary for two people for a year places all of the risk on your supporters and makes you look uninspired. Edit: I can't reply to child, so I'll do it here. It has nothing to do with a free ride. I don't want the product because the solution isn't right for me, but I would much prefer to pay a mont…

I don't understand your objections at all. These guys are making a proposal, which individuals are free to accept or reject as they see fit. Those who accept it know what they're getting themselves into and accept the risk. No one is getting scammed. If these guys want a parachute, that's their prerogative. Just because you wouldn't take the same approach doesn't mean the approach is a bad one.

Point blank - I'm tired of people abusing crowdfunding as some sort of money grab (Spike Lee's recent Kickstarter as an example) and because I'm involved in the industry, I have a vested interest in seeing crowdfunding, as an industry, prosper.

These guys probably have a great product, and are probably great people, and for that reason alone, I feel bad that my comment leads the thread. However, I never said anything that suggested this was a scam, and I don't believe it is. Like I said, people get what they pay for. It's just that I see this trend getting worse, and I think long-term it will hurt crowdfunding.