This software and discussion miss the reason you can't descentralized a twitter clone: analytics. One of the advantages of centralized services is the capability to quickly analyze what's going on from the content of the messages but you can't do that with a descentralized service.
GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
101–110 of 259 posts
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#102So, can anybody elaborate on the history of and relationship between StatusNet, identi.ca, GNU social and pump.io? It seems like this fragmentation is another obstacle for success, besides the obvious issue of gaining traction.
And then there's tent.io, which appears to be completely unrelated but have similar goals. Is there anyone with insights on usage numbers, development activity etc. of the different projects? In other words: What's the best bet for federated, open source microblogging?
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#103So, can anybody elaborate on the history of and relationship between StatusNet, identi.ca, GNU social and pump.io? It seems like this fragmentation is another obstacle for success, besides the obvious issue of gaining traction. And then there's tent.io, which appears to be completely unrelated but have similar goals. Is there anyone with insights on usage numbers, development activity etc. of the different projects?…
GNU social is, as far as I understand it, just a rebranding of the old StatusNet project after it joined the GNU project.
identi.ca had been the most post popular StatusNet instance until they switched to pump.io, a new project started by at least one of the StatusNet developers.
tent.io is unrelated to the others as far as i know.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least in Germany, we do not have secret courts and gag orders like in the USA.
How do you know for sure? Honest question.
It's impossible to prove. I think the best you can do is a) no legal basis for that kind of thing, and even more importantly b) a citizenry that remembers totalitarianism and knows the importance of privacy rights.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#105Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#106So, can anybody elaborate on the history of and relationship between StatusNet, identi.ca, GNU social and pump.io? It seems like this fragmentation is another obstacle for success, besides the obvious issue of gaining traction. And then there's tent.io, which appears to be completely unrelated but have similar goals. Is there anyone with insights on usage numbers, development activity etc. of the different projects?…
GNU social is, as far as I understand it, just a rebranding of the old StatusNet project after it joined the GNU project. identi.ca had been the most post popular StatusNet instance until they switched to pump.io, a new project started by at least one of the StatusNet developers. tent.io is unrelated to the others as far as i know.
Correct on all counts.
Identica was a StatusNet instance it is now a Pump instance.
GNUSocial is a re-branding of StatusNet.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. I've been running a Jabber server and a GNU Social node for about a year now and I can tell you it takes maybe 1 hour a week of my time for patching. I have automatic security updates enabled on both systems but I tend to login from time to time and do a dist-upgrade on them manually.
Sure, but I'd say 1 hour/week is quite a bit more than the a normal person would like to spend on maintaining apps (probably 0). Why someone would want to run their own instance of their favorite web app when most are given away for free, no maintenance required.
The average person is not supposed to maintain their own node for these services. That's why they have us who give our free time and our VPS accounts to host such things.
It basically comes down to trusting Big Media or trusting your neighbour with your data.
I personally doubt we'll see a big breakthrough for Big Media alternatives because people go where their friends are.
I am unfortunately expecting fragmentation in that field, sort of like reverting back to the early days of the internet when us nerds who could connect were considered a subculture. Now that everyone can connect we're creating a subculture of people who choose not to use Big Media and instead gravitate towards smaller and less centralized alternatives.
That doesn't matter though, I have always enjoyed being on the fringe and I believe I will continue enjoying my time there. :)
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The scarcity is in some sense enforced and artificial The problem is, you can mount the very same argument even in the case of normal property rights. At the beginnings of capitalism, the scarcity was in fact enforced by means of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure . IMHO, most libertarians are used to idea normal property and take it for "natural", but not so in the "intellectual" world of ideas. It is partly…
You have the draw the line somewhere and using physical boundaries is quite useful. It create a natural distinction. The problem with IP is that there isn't any limit to it. A driver license is not more or less a property than a patent, but it acts wastingly different. Can I sell a driver license? can I rent it? Can I cut it into two different part and give a friend half of it? What makes the exclusivity of state gra…
The distinction doesn't look natural to me..
I don't see why anyone should "own" natural resources, or beaches for instance. I understand that we all need a place to live and we want to own our personal possessions, but it doesn't seem to me at all natural to extend this to mines, factories or huge tracts of lands on the other side of the planet, that you perhaps even never see. Maybe the scarcity of natural resources isn't such a big deal unless you have people who simply own to much of it.
In the same vein, I agree that authors and inventors should be compensated for the efforts, but the copyrights and patents shouldn't create more scarcity.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you ever read anything by RMS on what he calls Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS)? I can't think of many large businesses who aren't "guilty" of that.
This looks like the SaaSS article: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s... The payoff comes at the very end, "Do your own computing with your own copy of a free program, for your freedom's sake." Nah, I'll pay someone to do compute (and maintain the API, infrastructure, etc.) for me. I'm a huge free software advocate, but in the SaaS situation, I'm not paying for a program, I'm paying for resu…
The loss of freedom, in your case, is control over the development direction of your tools. If the tools match your business, fine. Let's hope they still do in a few years.
If the match is only partial, your choice is between lobbying for tool change from your vendor, or conforming your business to match the tool.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#110Before the site has given me any reason to join, it makes me choose between 7 virtually indistinguishable options of providers with subtle technical advantages and disadvantages.
Ah, GNU projects. Never change.