Yes it is ancient. Last May, the global decentralized social network Fedivers (English - Fediverse) 11 years! Exactly so many years ago, the founder of the Identi.ca project published the first post.
Meanwhile, a certain anonymous on a respected resource wrote: βThe problem with Fedivers is that two and a half diggers know about itβ.
What a ridiculous problem. Let's fix it! And, at the same time, let's try to dispel some myths (and strengthen some legends).
*For the sake of completeness, it may be useful to read about Fedivers, with the caveat that much of it is already outdated.
Let's start with the most controversial myth.
Myth #1: <Name of any corporation> doesn't give a damn about all the decentralized "alternatives" hype.
To some extent, this statement is true. Exactly as true as the catchphrase of Mahatma Gandhi: βFirst they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you winΒ«.
The topic of decentralization does not give anyone peace. At the end of 2018, the creator of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, spoke about his plan to decentralize the web using a new project. . It would seem, why not take a closer look at the already existing federated social networks with a protocol , which standardized , which is headed by Mr. Berners-Lee?
In July 2019, Apple joined the Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft data migration project . What does Fediverse have to do with it? In the project repository, along with Twitter, Instagram, Facebook (and Solid), you will find for federated network . Not bad for a network that doesn't care.
In October 2019, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced the launch of "an alternative to Facebook and Twitter" - , a platform without ads that exists through user donations. These principles are reminiscent of federated networks, as Twitter users were quick to report to Mr. Wales. That on the implementation of the ActivityPub protocol and later announced that the code for the WT:Social project would be open-sourced under the GPLv3 license. Great!
In December 2019, Twitter creator Jack Dorsey about the company's intentions to invest in the research and creation of a number of open decentralized standards for social networks in order to improve the Twitter service. There were many jokes on the Fedivers networks about this that Dorsey decided to clone the Mastodon federation network. The fact is that a month before his statement, Dorsey on Twitter to the official promo account of the Mastodon network. So he just couldn't be unaware of her existence. Developer Mastodon positively about the idea of ββbringing Twitter into the Fedivers networks (instead of creating new incompatible standards).
And now a question for the readers: at what stage, in your opinion, is Fedivers within the definition of Mahatma Gandhi?
Myth #2: There are at most 10 foreigners and 100 bots using federated networks. Projects are dead! No development! There are no stickers!
I hasten to reassure: stickers recently in a federated network , one of the fastest growing platforms in terms of the number of servers. The project code is written in the Elixir language and is optimized for small communities (you can easily run a node on some Beaglebone or Raspberry Pi).
Rumors of the death of federal projects are greatly exaggerated. Yes, microblogging network GNU Social, which has existed since 2010, is outdated by today's standards. Until recently, it did not even have the ability to send a non-public message, since this scenario is not provided for in the OStatus protocol specification. Luckily, GNU Social has been around for a year now. on the implementation of the ActivityPub protocol.
Let's take a look at the newer, actively developing networks.
Most successful federal project (for some time now surpassing Twitter in functionality), in January last year grant , designed for "innovative, promising" projects. In addition, the project has stable financial support on Patreon. In 2019 Keybase integration with Mastodon, which caused a mixed reaction from users. Fortunately, as expected in free software, this is optional and is decided on the side of the server administrator.
Mastodon has several interesting forks: with experimental features (which are most often subsequently accepted into the general branch of the Mastodon project), , which expands the post markup capabilities. It is also worth looking at alternative interfaces, among which ΠΈ .
If you are passing by, don't forget to join .
You can find a lot about Mastodon online, so let's move on.
β decentralized video hosting and video broadcasting platform β created by the community as an alternative to YouTube / Vimeo. The project was first highlighted in the press thanks to Google, which in 2018 temporarily blocked the account of the Blender 3D modeling system. Then enthusiasts his PeerTube, available to this day. The goal of the project is to create a network of interconnected video providers independent of major market players. To ease the load on servers, the platform supports peer-to-peer video broadcasting using WebRTC: if several users simultaneously view video in the browser, as long as the tab is open, users help distribute content.
Recently release of version 2.0. Videos from PeerTube can be viewed from the Mastodon network (100% information) and some other Fediverse networks (bugs are possible).
PeerTube uploads Russian-speaking about the history of Fedivers from . Be sure to listen!
- like Instagram, only without photos of nails (at least for now)! Project recently grant from the European organization for further development and over the past year increased the number of nodes to 100+. Federates with most Fediverse networks.
is an alternative to Grooveshark and Deezer. Written in Python, project to federate with the Mastodon network as recently as last December. The platform allows you to create playlists, listen to other people's collections of music ("radio"), interact with other users. It is possible to upload and share audio recordings in a limited way, for example, to avoid copyright problems.
is an unexpectedly successful federated blogging platform. Apparently, Mastodon users are terribly fed up with the 500-character limit. One way or another, the project quickly gained popularity in narrow circles - 200+ servers in more than a year - and by maintaining a paid node (for those who are too lazy to raise their own and everyone who wants to help financially) even about finding new Go developers on a contract basis. In June 2019 Linux kernel developers new blog service , which has WriteFreely software under the hood. Posts on this platform can be read from Pleroma and some other Fediverse networks.
- An evolving federated protocol-extension of ActivityPub, which will provide federation between version control systems. Previously, the project was called .
More of the interesting - for organizing meetings, events, conferences. Created by the association as a result of a successful crowdfunding , this platform will replace MeetUp, Facebook groups and other centralized solutions. Hooray!
In the previous networks were mentioned , ΠΈ . To date, all three networks have implemented the ActivityPub protocol and joined most federated networks while retaining the advantage of federating with a large (by number of accounts) network . Someone will say that maintaining multiple protocols is rather a disadvantage. Due to the different functionality, ensuring stable federation with all other networks is not a trivial task. And yet, it is possible.
Interface considered the easiest to learn for Facebook users. I would argue with that (although I find the design of Facebook wildly inconvenient). Unlimited posts, photo albums, private messages - the minimum set expected from a social network is here. The project really needs a front-end enthusiast (it so happened that there are only back-enders in the team) - who wants to join the open source?
- not the most intuitive network (I invite everyone to help improve the interface). But the platform provides a wide range of opportunities to work as a social network, forum, discussion groups, Wiki and website. The latest release was at the end of 2019. In addition to ActivityPub and diaspora protocols, Hubzilla is federated within the network using its own protocol. , thanks to which it provides two features unique to Fediverse. First, it is the pass-through authentication of "Nomadic Identity". Secondly, the account cloning function, which allows you to have a "backup" of all data (posts, contacts, correspondence) on another server - useful if the main server suddenly goes offline. Binding a user to a specific server (and the difficulty of further migration to a new one) is a weak point of federated networks. Several Fediverse projects have expressed a desire to implement the Zot protocol, but so far at the conversational level. Meanwhile, on the official standardization of the Zot protocol within the W3C.
Forum of the Russian-speaking community Hubzilla (it can be subscribed to from other networks that Hubzilla federates with).
is a federated network with a flexible interface reminiscent of Pinterest or Tumblr. Most suitable for visual content (illustrations, photographs). Project developer, also founder of a non-profit organization to promote federated platforms , has planned a lot of interesting features. The network is evolving slowly, we follow the development of events.
- so far little can be said about this project, except that it is being developed by a former employee of Vkontakte and Telegram, and a clone of Vkontakte is planned in a sense. It would be very helpful: the functionality of communities is poorly developed in federated networks. The project code has not yet been published, but already federated.
Of course, these are not all the networks that make up Fedivers. Programmers love to write their own variations, so in 2019 alone there were 13 new projects. Look for the current list of Fedivers networks , and you can read about the results of 2019 .
Returning to the myth, for 2019 in Fediverse added more than a million new users. So, after all, there are more than 10 foreigners there. The Russian-speaking community is still small.
Myth # 3 (the most enduring): no one needs all this!
And here, reader, I can hardly convince you with a text. It would be like explaining the taste of watermelon to someone who has never tasted it.
Noteworthy (great) speech by a well-known activist at the European Parliament in November 2019, where he representatives of the people, what are the main problems of the current EU approach to regulating and supporting centralized corporations and start-ups, and what are the advantages of open federated networks. I recommend viewing. If the Aral Sea doesn't convince you to test federated networks, then I won't.
See also recordings of speeches from held in August in Prague. The event is quite chaotic, organized so quickly that not everyone who wished had time to buy tickets and come. The good news is that a new conference is planned for all federated networks (not just ActivityPub) in 2020 in Barcelona. for news about the event.
Some useful links:
- Site guide to federated networks -
- Server stats -
- Statistics of various federal projects -
- More stats -
- Connectivity Visualization β
Finally, a picture to attract you is a poster from the Chaos Computer Club congress last year:
See you at Fediverse!
I express my gratitude to the Doctor for proofreading this article and useful edits, and to Maxim from the Hubzilla team for the additions.
Source: habr.com