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__turbobrew__ 21 hours ago

We need DNS, but for mail addresses.

pdfernhout 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Maybe DNS for mail addresses is like a Post Office Box number? :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_office_box

With 20/20 hindsight, if the FSF had used a P.O. Box number in the license, the license addresses would always be correct even if the FSF office changed addressed or (as now) was no longer maintained.

Of course, the cost of a P.O. box over 40 years would have added up to thousands of dollars and that is less money for FSF advocacy. And time spent going to the post office to check the box would also have taken away from advocacy time.

Another physical mail DNS-like idea is mail forwarding -- but it typically has time limits at the post office although not for private mail forwarders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_forwarding "Private mail forwarding services are also offered by private forwarding companies, who often offer features like the ability to see your mail online via a virtual mailbox. Virtual mailboxes usually have options to get your mail scanned, discard junk mail and forward mail to your current address."

Although strictly speaking, these forwarding services are not quite like DNS (even if they do get at the idea of indirection). A true mail DNS would be more like a service you mail a post card to with a person's or organization's name and which mails a post card back to you which tells you what address to currently write to in order to reach that person or organization. (At least, if you write to that received address during some time-to-live window of validity of the address.) And I guess Encrypted DNS would be like you and the service using more expensive security envelopes instead of post cards? :-)

vitus 5 hours ago | parent [-]

> Of course, the cost of a P.O. box over 40 years would have added up to thousands of dollars and that is less money for FSF advocacy. And time spent going to the post office to check the box would also have taken away from advocacy time.

To be fair, renting office space in downtown Boston also adds up to tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars, every year. By comparison, $500 dollars a year [0] for a medium PO Box (in the lobby of the building for their new office, no less!) is a steal.

[0] https://poboxes.usps.com/findBox.html?q=02196

schlauerfox 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

CGP Grey, a youtube channel, has a video on some of the problems of the postal codes and addresses from earlier this year that I learned about alternates to my familiar US based system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K5oDtVAYzk

ajb 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

One thing I've been meaning to try, but never got round to, is to stick a URL on an envelope, pointing at a page with an address, and see if the mail (royal mail, in my case) actually deliver it. I suspect they would but that it would take a few extra days. It's no worse than some of the addresses that they do deliver.

ayewo 19 hours ago | parent [-]

What about encoding the address as a QR code?

This should not require any Internet access to view by whoever is scanning it to be sorted for delivery.

aftbit 19 hours ago | parent [-]

It also does not help you to update the address later.

giancarlostoro 18 hours ago | parent [-]

It does if it leads to a web page with an address.

What happens when all project maintainers die and the source code disappears?

Sophira 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It does, but I think the person you were responding to was referring to the "This should not require any Internet access to view" part.

pabs3 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Hopefully it will never disappear, since Software Heritage and ArchiveTeam will have saved it.

https://www.softwareheritage.org/ https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/Codearchiver

fragmede 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Hope is not a strategy. As much as I hate crypto, something on the blockchain might be more durable. You want something that isn't reliant on any one person or company to continue to exist (though maybe the long now foundation will) and even if Bitcoin goes to zero, I think there will be some die hard true believers to keep running miners even past the built in 2140 expiration date.

solarkraft 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Even moving once has made the need for this clear to me, it boggles my mind that it isn’t a (common) thing.