Diaspora* is also an interesting option. * https://diasporafoundation.org * https://the-federation.info
It would be nice if these would interoperate, so that it was not really an either/or choice. Don't they have essentially the same goals?
GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
31–40 of 259 posts
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#32Stuff like this is never going to work, because it suffers from the chicken-and-egg problem. Everyone (who cares about Twitter or something like it) uses Twitter because everyone else uses Twitter. You can make an account on Quitter or Diaspora or any other decentralized FLOSS network, but it'll be useless because all your non-nerd friends (and most of your nerd friends too) won't have accounts there, and will contin…
> it'll be useless because all your non-nerd friends (and most of your nerd friends too) won't have accounts there Call it Eternal September, the unwashed masses, the quality of online communities dropping as they grow, call it whatever, I'm ready for a reboot, desperate even. You are probably right — there'll be a chicken and egg problem even with hardcore nerdy gnu fans, but if new networks are created that attract…
If i want to get out of the way of the Eternal September, i just stick to IRC and domain-specific forums.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#33I'm beginning to think social media is toxic for society as a whole, do we even really want an source alternative to twitter, should twitter cease to exist?
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#34Diaspora* is also an interesting option. * https://diasporafoundation.org * https://the-federation.info
It would be nice if these would interoperate, so that it was not really an either/or choice. Don't they have essentially the same goals?
There were some plans for that it seems:
https://git.gnu.io/gnu/gnu-social/issues/18
Diaspora is already interoperable with Red Matrix. For better interoperaibility they need to finalize the API.
* https://wiki.diasporafoundation.org/Diaspora_API_proposal
* https://www.loomio.org/d/cedTCbsI/the-api-bounty-deliverable...
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#35Neat product but the "familiar user interface" for a Quitter is literally a copy of Twitter. That's not a good look.
It implements the 2010 version of twitter, for once being outdated isn't much a regression.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#36The https://quitter.se anti-capitalist message didn't resonate with me, so I joined the https://gnusocial.no federation. Much friendlier :)
I am not familiar with either, but I am curious why does "anti-capitalist message" matter so much? I thought the purpose is to build a messaging network that everybody can use. And even GNU founder can be considered anti-capitalist. I am asking because to me, to decide to join some (not political) community based on your own political opinion, is a good way to live in your own bubble. The real strength of the Interne…
Before the horde descends, I thought I might respond to the suggestion that RMS is anti-capitalist. This comes up frequently and is a bit of a red herring. I won't try to speak for him (he can obviously do that well enough himself), however I think it is worth considering the free software movement in today's reality.
Back when they only thing that described free software was the GNU manifesto, we still had the idea that writing software that enabled businesses was a good idea. It may be a consequence of free software that it will become difficult to charge money directly for software (as a product), but that shouldn't stop companies from making money.
Especially now when we see how open source software is almost taken for granted, we can see that companies flourish, not die. It is true that you practically can not charge money for a compiler any more, but are we worse off? No. We have different and arguably better business models for that kind of software -- and we haven't given up capitalism at all. My tools are dramatically better than they were 30 years ago (when I first started in this business). The cost has also dropped to nearly zero. We have become efficient.
It is true that the FSF considers software freedom a moral imperative. While it may be true that some kinds of software will be difficult to produce in this manner, we can see that there are several very large companies that thrive producing virtually every kind of software. Personally, I don't think there are many businesses that will be better off with our old software-as-a-product business models -- games being a probable exception. What we have now is better, more efficient, enabling for the general population -- and much better for businesses. I have a hard time seeing it from an "anti-capitalist" position. And, just from my personal perspective, I don't think RMS ever did either.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#37What's the value proposition over Twitter?
What do you mean by "value proposition"? It is free software, not a business opportunity. Not everything is about selling and money. I read about the project just to answer your question, which you could have answered for yourself by reading. You can run your own instance. The source is open, which means it is publicly auditable, you can contribute to it, you can fork it. It is federated. There is not one single glob…
> There is not one single global point of failure, which has other implications regarding things like censorship.
In other words it doesn't just ignore abuse and harrassment one of the biggest problems - maybe the biggest problem - twitter has a communications platform, it practically encourages it.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#38I was excited to learn that GNU Social is in PHP, but quickly turned off because of the quality of the PHP code.
Instead of being written in Guile Scheme.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#39The https://quitter.se anti-capitalist message didn't resonate with me, so I joined the https://gnusocial.no federation. Much friendlier :)
I am not familiar with either, but I am curious why does "anti-capitalist message" matter so much? I thought the purpose is to build a messaging network that everybody can use. And even GNU founder can be considered anti-capitalist. I am asking because to me, to decide to join some (not political) community based on your own political opinion, is a good way to live in your own bubble. The real strength of the Interne…
> And even GNU founder can be considered anti-capitalist.
You are mixing up anarchism with anti-capitalism.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#40I'm beginning to think social media is toxic for society as a whole, do we even really want an source alternative to twitter, should twitter cease to exist?
That's not really a decision we can make on behalf of the rest of society, is it?