XSF Communication Team needs a new email account provider
TLDR: XSF Communication Team is asking to switch to mailbox.org for 30 EUR per year. Dear all, We would like to find a new email address for the XSF Communication Team that supports all our growing needs. Protonmail no longer meets these needs for a long time, either for free or at a reasonable price (while still respecting their service). We need such an account because Protonmail asked for a paid subscription to use SMTP with e.g. Thunderbird (yes really). We are also limited in organizing emails and the inbox as this is also restricted in the free plan. Additionally, we are currently blocked to use Reddit and LinkedIn with SocialBu with our Protonmail. We are therefore looking for a decent host that also supports a good level of compliance, privacy under GDPR, and possibly comes with more capabilities at a reasonable price. We have created a service comparison table here: https://pad.nixnet.services/331YAjbUQOmAWa2Octx_DA?view Later on, we could also ask Mailbox.org if they could provide a standard account for free. As they even used to run an XMPP server, they might be willing to support an account. However, I am not sure how such a collaboration should look like. Firstly, we are blocked being fully operational and able to expand as we could at the moment and I would like to switch first. Then we can expand cooperation and maybe even sponsoring. On the other hand, switching to mailbox.org would provide us with additional organisational tooling that could benefit the XSF and the XMPP Community such as custom domains and other office tools they provide. Best regards, Eddie
Sounds reasonable to me. I have very good experience with mailbox for both my professional and my private account. Thx Eddie! On 2/8/26 4:09 PM, E.M. wrote:
TLDR: XSF Communication Team is asking to switch to mailbox.org for 30 EUR per year.
Dear all,
We would like to find a new email address for the XSF Communication Team that supports all our growing needs. Protonmail no longer meets these needs for a long time, either for free or at a reasonable price (while still respecting their service).
We need such an account because Protonmail asked for a paid subscription to use SMTP with e.g. Thunderbird (yes really). We are also limited in organizing emails and the inbox as this is also restricted in the free plan. Additionally, we are currently blocked to use Reddit and LinkedIn with SocialBu with our Protonmail.
We are therefore looking for a decent host that also supports a good level of compliance, privacy under GDPR, and possibly comes with more capabilities at a reasonable price. We have created a service comparison table here: https://pad.nixnet.services/331YAjbUQOmAWa2Octx_DA?view
Later on, we could also ask Mailbox.org if they could provide a standard account for free. As they even used to run an XMPP server, they might be willing to support an account. However, I am not sure how such a collaboration should look like.
Firstly, we are blocked being fully operational and able to expand as we could at the moment and I would like to switch first. Then we can expand cooperation and maybe even sponsoring.
On the other hand, switching to mailbox.org would provide us with additional organisational tooling that could benefit the XSF and the XMPP Community such as custom domains and other office tools they provide.
Best regards, Eddie
Dear all, Apologies for the long wait in responding here. Eddie, I realize that you've been trying to get this topic on the table for quite some time now. Thank you for your patience and persistence in following up. Referring back to an earlier discussion on this topic on the Board list, there seemed to be broad agreement that obtaining a mailbox for the Communication Team would be a normal operational expense, and that the cost involved was modest and acceptable. In that light, I'm fine with approving a budget of roughly 30 EUR/USD per year for a mailbox service, if that is what's needed to unblock your work and better support current and future activities. Before moving ahead, I'd like to make sure we fully understand any technical or organizational implications of the switch: - Does this have (negative) impact on the identifiers/mail addresses that we use? Can we continue to use the email addresses on our own domain? - Is involvement from the iTeam required to set this up or migrate? - Does this change have any impact beyond the Commteam, or affect other ongoing or planned efforts? Finally, to be explicit: let's leave any discussion around sponsorship, partnerships, or logo placement out of scope for now. If the service is useful, we should simply purchase it and move on. We can always revisit broader collaboration questions separately, if and when that makes sense. Kind regards, Guus On Sun, Feb 8, 2026 at 3:39 PM eevvoor <eevvoor@mailbox.org> wrote:
Sounds reasonable to me. I have very good experience with mailbox for both my professional and my private account. Thx Eddie!
On 2/8/26 4:09 PM, E.M. wrote:
TLDR: XSF Communication Team is asking to switch to mailbox.org for 30 EUR per year.
Dear all,
We would like to find a new email address for the XSF Communication Team that supports all our growing needs. Protonmail no longer meets these needs for a long time, either for free or at a reasonable price (while still respecting their service).
We need such an account because Protonmail asked for a paid subscription to use SMTP with e.g. Thunderbird (yes really). We are also limited in organizing emails and the inbox as this is also restricted in the free plan. Additionally, we are currently blocked to use Reddit and LinkedIn with SocialBu with our Protonmail.
We are therefore looking for a decent host that also supports a good level of compliance, privacy under GDPR, and possibly comes with more capabilities at a reasonable price. We have created a service comparison table here: https://pad.nixnet.services/331YAjbUQOmAWa2Octx_DA?view
Later on, we could also ask Mailbox.org if they could provide a standard account for free. As they even used to run an XMPP server, they might be willing to support an account. However, I am not sure how such a collaboration should look like.
Firstly, we are blocked being fully operational and able to expand as we could at the moment and I would like to switch first. Then we can expand cooperation and maybe even sponsoring.
On the other hand, switching to mailbox.org would provide us with additional organisational tooling that could benefit the XSF and the XMPP Community such as custom domains and other office tools they provide.
Best regards, Eddie
Hi Guus, many thanks for the response and sorry for my delay. Thanks for bringing this to Board. In general, I am open for other suggestions if I missed something. Just let me know. I believe it would certainly unblock our work and even improve quality (of the newsletter). I have reached out to iTeam and they ask about having a mailing list system that does not apply to the needs as I see it. We need a "normal" email. Also I prefer to keep the effort on the team low. I cannot think of any other impacts beside the efforts I need to put myself into switching to a new email. Yes, no plans to start a sponsorship discussion. Thanks, Eddie On 12/02/2026 11:07, Guus der Kinderen wrote:
Dear all,
Apologies for the long wait in responding here. Eddie, I realize that you've been trying to get this topic on the table for quite some time now. Thank you for your patience and persistence in following up.
Referring back to an earlier discussion on this topic on the Board list, there seemed to be broad agreement that obtaining a mailbox for the Communication Team would be a normal operational expense, and that the cost involved was modest and acceptable. In that light, I'm fine with approving a budget of roughly 30 EUR/USD per year for a mailbox service, if that is what's needed to unblock your work and better support current and future activities.
Before moving ahead, I'd like to make sure we fully understand any technical or organizational implications of the switch:
- Does this have (negative) impact on the identifiers/mail addresses that we use? Can we continue to use the email addresses on our own domain? - Is involvement from the iTeam required to set this up or migrate? - Does this change have any impact beyond the Commteam, or affect other ongoing or planned efforts?
Finally, to be explicit: let's leave any discussion around sponsorship, partnerships, or logo placement out of scope for now. If the service is useful, we should simply purchase it and move on. We can always revisit broader collaboration questions separately, if and when that makes sense.
Kind regards,
Guus
On Sun, Feb 8, 2026 at 3:39 PM eevvoor <eevvoor@mailbox.org> wrote:
Sounds reasonable to me. I have very good experience with mailbox for both my professional and my private account. Thx Eddie!
On 2/8/26 4:09 PM, E.M. wrote:
TLDR: XSF Communication Team is asking to switch to mailbox.org for 30 EUR per year.
Dear all,
We would like to find a new email address for the XSF Communication Team that supports all our growing needs. Protonmail no longer meets these needs for a long time, either for free or at a reasonable price (while still respecting their service).
We need such an account because Protonmail asked for a paid subscription to use SMTP with e.g. Thunderbird (yes really). We are also limited in organizing emails and the inbox as this is also restricted in the free plan. Additionally, we are currently blocked to use Reddit and LinkedIn with SocialBu with our Protonmail.
We are therefore looking for a decent host that also supports a good level of compliance, privacy under GDPR, and possibly comes with more capabilities at a reasonable price. We have created a service comparison table here: https://pad.nixnet.services/331YAjbUQOmAWa2Octx_DA?view
Later on, we could also ask Mailbox.org if they could provide a standard account for free. As they even used to run an XMPP server, they might be willing to support an account. However, I am not sure how such a collaboration should look like.
Firstly, we are blocked being fully operational and able to expand as we could at the moment and I would like to switch first. Then we can expand cooperation and maybe even sponsoring.
On the other hand, switching to mailbox.org would provide us with additional organisational tooling that could benefit the XSF and the XMPP Community such as custom domains and other office tools they provide.
Best regards, Eddie
participants (3)
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E.M. -
eevvoor -
Guus der Kinderen