reproducibility => forkability
------------------------------

The ability to fork a project is a checks and balances
system for free software projects.  Reproducibility is key
to forkability since every mirror is potential fork.

git makes the code history of projects fully reproducible.
public-inbox uses git to make the email history of projects
reproducible.

Keeping all communications as email ensures the full history
of the entire project can be mirrored by anyone with the
resources to do so.  Compact, low-complexity data requires
less resources to mirror, so sticking with plain text
ensures more parties can mirror and potentially fork the
project with all its data.

Any private or irreproducible data is a barrier to forking.
These include mailing list subscriber information and
non-federated user identities.  The "pull" subscriber model
of NNTP and Atom feeds combined with open-to-all posting
means there's no need for private data.

If these things make power hungry project leaders and admins
uncomfortable, good.  That was the point.  It's how checks
and balances ought to work.

Comments, corrections, etc. welcome: meta@public-inbox.org