Many other guides dive deep into 10 plus pages of how to set up such a service with Dovecot, Postfix and a web server all from the command line, but this one is a lot simpler because most of what you need is inside Citadel. Citadel also has calendar, Contacts, Notes, Tasks and chat rooms so can be a good alternative to Google or other providers. Your only cost really is the Raspberry Pi and a domain name if you don’t already have one.
You could tweak this a bit further by using your own DNS provider (or alternative to Cloudflare) and considering an external hard drive connected to the Pi for reliability.
See https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-email-server/
#technology #email #privacy #raspberrypi #alternativeto #opensource
So i never heard about citadel project before… From their Code of Conduct (or lack thereof):
Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) are prohibited from participating in the Citadel community.
Not that i identify with this SJW label, but my interpretation is they’re pretty happy without most of us :)
Mmm OK interesting never looked at their actual community - makes me wonder about their open source license then thoughh as terrorists also are suppoised to be able to freely use open source software. Hope they realise that.
Well a license can have some exceptions. For example there’s the anticapitalist software license. But in this case i think it’s not exactly a legal construct so much as a giant “NAZIS WELCOME” sign ;-)
But as stated there “The Anti-Capitalist Software License is not an open source software license”. Open source has to be an unrestricted license for it to fulfil the defintion.
To fulfill the OSI definition, yes. But open source as used by the public and the industry means “i can read the source code” and strictly nothing more. By that definition, ACSL is open-source.
There’s stuff like ethical open source licenses that are literally made so that you can’t use them for racism, terrorism, etc. “Ethical” is a bit of a squishy term but it’s definitely better than giving free tools to terrorists and nazis
Licenses often include a description so you don’t need to read it (mentioning this bc i know some people would be wary of the “ethical” bit and would rather Know everything the license is about), and some people legit read licenses so you can just ask them about it
Yes terrorism is also a bit of a subjective term - just depends on which side you are as the other side calls them freedom fighters. It starts getting very murky as non-harmful includes all “legitimate” armed forces, and in many countries even their police forces. Globally everyone just does not hold the same values, and perspectives differ a lot. Gender discrimination judged in one country is also not seen the same in other countries. Many companies are not very ethical in their business practices (sometimes even governments) which leaves just about everyone sliding down the slippery slope ;-)
Yup, I just think it’s better to struggle on the slippery slope than to make the slope be fixed at a 90° angle. Stopping some harm is better than making it easier for all harm to occur
…and that’s the whole thing lmao. Just why?
Because the fascist-leaning free-software devs feel threatened by codes of conduct. Suddenly they can’t harass women or call someone a n-word or a re-word for making a mistake in a patch, or for daring to ask a question. It was a common issue in many circles, where some communities were known to be more welcoming than others, but i don’t believe the “code of conduct” as we know it (beyond usual terms of service or association bylaws) was a thing back then in the free-software communities.
Following the Gamergate anti-feminist/alt-right harassment campaign, most communities have been forced (over the years) to “pick a side”. Some like Weboob made sure bigoted “jokes” were welcome because noone was going to police their free speech, so the package was removed from Debian and years later it turned out one of the biggest contributors was an actual nazi (who donated a fortune in Bitcoin to alt-right movements worldwide right before taking his own life) so finally the project is being renamed. Others, like the Tor project, made sure very early on to create an inclusive space for dissenters, and in general for people who do not fit in the very narrow boxes established by our society.
Then, there’s the BDFL project, where some (admittedly skilled) people end up governing an entire project as a benevolent dictator. I would argue it’s impossible for a single person to be continuously-welcoming, but in the case of software development where bug reports and patch reviews can eat a lot of your mental energy, having a BDFL is usually a red-flag for a toxic community. Both FSF and Linux projects have undergone serious governing crisis around their BDFL (rms and linus respectively). The former has been removed from head of FSF (though remains head of the GNU project to my knowledge) while the latter has taken time off to reflect, and apologized for his behavior. Both of these events were interpreted by the far-right either as an overreach of “social justice warriors” putting heads on spikes for no reason, or as an actual conspiracy theory involving secret services “eliminating” the BDFLs in order to backdoor the software they were maintaining.
So in general blaming “social justice warriors” (eg. left-leaning liberals) for our problems in life is factually wrong, and takes place in a wider fascist context (just like the nazis were blaming the “communists” and the “jews”). But specifically in software development, having a code of conduct is fine (when it’s not just an appearance), but not having a formal code of conduct is fine as well if the team is small and critical of their actions/privileges. But some projects explicitly refuse to have some for the wrong reasons, and this citadel project has this one we’ve been talking about which is like an anti-code-of-conduct.
I could go on for hours about how a code of conduct does not necessarily create a safe space, and how no space is really safe and we need to stay critical of the most subtle forms of harassment and discrimination. But the point is, besides the practical guidelines contained in the Code of Conduct, simply having a CoC is a sort of signaling mechanism for an intent to build a decent community, and that’s without a doubt a good thing.
Here is an example from ~fr for a Code of Conduct, although we don’t exactly like to call it that. Do we really have to “code people’s conduct” (a term borrowed from the world of business) to let them know fascists and masculinists (among others) are not welcome on our server? Anyway i hope i answered your question by providing context, sorry it took a while :)
Most people who are tired of Genderism are neither Nazis or criminals. Genderrism has more than once destroid an otherwise good work.
Genderism
What’s that even? Seriously though i’ve been involved in feminist circles for quite some time, and i’ve never even heard that word. You’re just making things up.
Genderrism has more than once destroid an otherwise good work.
Nazism apology and reactionary bigotry has more than once destroyed an otherwise good work.
The problem is with the idiots who think that the master branch is racist
Also, ethical software is bullshit IMO. Free software 4life
There is also a problem with people who make a big drama when projects dare to use a different name for their main branch.
Believe me; I do not give a shit what others use. After all, I (like others) know other RCS systems outside Git, and I don’t find it a problem that e.g. hg uses HEAD (and has been using HEAD since its early days, before the “master is racist” nonsense), svn uses trunk (I think, admittedly I’m not a fan of centralized RCS systems).
I have a problem when others want to bully me into changing it when I don’t want to.
Edit: my only problem with this state is that there is no standard. I have no problem with hg’s choice, because EVERY hg repo’s master branch is called HEAD. But now with git, there two gazillion possibilites, and no standard. Some have moved to trunk, main, I’ve seem some people use “actual”, and some people use “master”, of course. So I do find it annoying that people had to ruin a standard that worked for over a decade.
I have a problem when others want to bully me into changing it when I don’t want to.
Did we, though? You are the one who brought up the whole “master”/“main” debate, it was not part of my argument. And in any case, nothing in the code prevents you from naming your branch “master”, only the default setting was changed.
my only problem with this state is that there is no standard
Yes there is. Your git client will automatically checkout the default branch from the remote. You can even programmatically detect the current branch after cloning so what’s your problem?
Yes, now you have to get out of your way to detect the name of the master branch. You used to be able to assume that it was “master”, obviously much less code required
the master branch is racist
It is. The master/slave terminology in computing is directly inherited from masters and slaves in the real world. If you don’t believe me look it up. In other areas of computing (eg. DNS/email) we say “primary”/“secondary” and it’s just fine like that. Some forges have recently switched to “main” as a default branch name and it’s also just fine.
ethical software is bullshit IMO
Why so? Is free-software surveillance equipment good in your opinion? Do you believe technology is neutral at all? Is it neutral to have a surveillance society? Can’t we do better, more ethical tech as a society?
Do you think that a government violating it’s own constitution will be stopped by a software license? Do people really believe that?
Thechnology is like any other tool, say, a hammer or a screwdriver. It serves it’s owner. It depends on the owner what it’s used for.
Surveillance should be illegal either way, we shouldn’t rely on software licenses to do that.
I will also insist that master is not racist. It’s not like only a single race was ever enslaved.
Also would you call the master bedroom, racist? I hope not.
Do you think that a government (…) will be stopped by a software license?
No certainly not. Though i’m happy if they don’t use my code, and even happier if governments disappear entirely.
Thechnology is like any other tool, say, a hammer or a screwdriver.
A hammer can be used to beat someone to death, but so could your bare hands. That’s just not what hammers are for, but it’s technically possible. A gun on the other hand, is designed explicitly to kill people and can not be used to build a shelf with. Technology is not neutral, it’s very political what it enables/prevents you to do.
I will also insist that master is not racist. It’s not like only a single race was ever enslaved.
Call it “slavist” or authoritarian if you prefer. It’s still a widespread mentality we need to get rid of. Although in the past 500 years (contrary to antique slavery) slavery has been very racialized, especially by Europe/USA when it comes to black people from Africa, but also in other countries with specific ethnic minorities. Whether the term is racist or not, i don’t care. What i care is it makes a metaphor that is dubious and makes people uncomfortable, so let’s just remove it and not argue anymore. In any case, we probably agree simply changing a word is not going to erase centuries of institutional racism.
Surveillance should be illegal either way, we shouldn’t rely on software licenses to do that.
Sure we agree on that. We need to dismantle all nation States and build autonomous communes so people can live free. How does that invalidate my argument that neonazis and other reactionaries are organizing worldwide to spread their ideology, even in the free-software world?
i would but my isp blocks port 25 or any stmp traffic
Yeah, and even if that wasn’t the case, most receiving email servers will put anything you send strait into the spam box. Self-hosting email is sadly broken in so many ways… :(
And a static IP address may be needed too to ovecome anti-spam services.
When I get my homeserver I’m planning to use a VPS with Wireguard to give it a static datacenter IP to host my E-Mail from home. If the E-Mail traffic is encrypted, even someone with full control over the VPS still wouldn’t be able to get any content
