On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data • Hacker News Board

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#61

Post by jarin » Fri, May 11, 2012, 8:48 PM UTC

generateui wrote: post #50

tylermenezes wrote: post #15

For anyone who missed it because it was at the very end: Diaspora just announced they're in YCombinator S12.

I am very curious to the business model Diaspora will pursue. any details about that already?

The AGPL licence and requirement for contributor licensing agreements means they can prevent people from making closed-source extensions (like for example if you wanted to tie it into your own internal authentication system), UNLESS you are willing to pay them to license it to you under a dual license.

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#62

Post by richardw » Fri, May 11, 2012, 8:59 PM UTC

fromhet wrote: post #29

darksaga wrote: post #25

I'm actually glad they are continuing on and fighting the stigma of the "best social network that never was". I have used Diaspora's site for a while and prefer it to Facebook and Google+. The problem is trying to maintain three separate social networks. Since most of the people I like to keep up with are on FB and G+, my use of Diaspora has slowed down over the past year or so.

What kind of people use G+? Only times I visit is when linked, and it's often some OSS-guru who has written something there but I dont ever use it, nor does anyone I know, not even remotely.

I visit most days. It's like long-form Twitter, so more depth to the discussions. I have some friends on there, but it's mostly to read and lightly interact with industry or interests.

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#63

Post by sevenstar » Fri, May 11, 2012, 9:02 PM UTC

Eliminating the middle man is important to the future of the web. Having a small group control super large groups is usually a disaster. Diaspora reflects the real world, where you do not need permission from someone to talk to your friends.

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#64

Post by ktr » Fri, May 11, 2012, 9:08 PM UTC

cma wrote: post #45

ktr wrote: post #34

I'm sure it has been discussed elsewhere, but does FB actually earn $5.11 per user? That's amazing to me - I rarely use the site, but even when I am on I don't recall ever clicking an ad. In fact, I don't know many people that have either.

TV makes ~$.20 per user-hour and no one ever clicks an ad.

Great point - thanks, that makes a lot of sense. Wasn't thinking about it like that.

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#65

Post by d503 » Fri, May 11, 2012, 9:56 PM UTC

jarin wrote: post #61

generateui wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very curious to the business model Diaspora will pursue. any details about that already?

The AGPL licence and requirement for contributor licensing agreements means they can prevent people from making closed-source extensions (like for example if you wanted to tie it into your own internal authentication system), UNLESS you are willing to pay them to license it to you under a dual license.

Can they do that? The "Limitations on Diaspora, Inc." section of the contributor agreement says:

> Diaspora, Inc. will not distribute your Contribution to any third party under any license without also requiring that third party to also make your Contribution available to the public under the same license.

I'm not sure but it sounds like that might prevent them from closed-source dual-licensing arrangements. I suppose that doesn't preclude them from building their own proprietary extensions to the Diaspora software for their own hosted services, although the agreement also states:

> Diaspora, Inc. will distribute the Diaspora™ Software, as a whole, under version 3 or later of the AGPL.

If extensions are considered part of the software "as a whole" then they might not even be able to do that.

https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/wiki/New-CLA--12-13-10

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#66

Post by gecko » Fri, May 11, 2012, 9:56 PM UTC

bct wrote: post #48

gecko wrote: post #43

I don't get the fascination with Diaspora. StatusNet is distributed, open, easy to set up, established, and extensible, and already has a large number of users (e.g. on identi.ca). What does this bring to the table? Newness?

It's sad, but (relative) newness is a pretty big feature; it gets attention, and attention gets users. The web has no attention span. You're either brand-new and hyped beyond realism, or ancient and boring.

On the one hand, I get that. On the other hand, many of the people who frequent the site where this is getting prominence use Vim, which is (admittedly indirectly, via vi) a 30-year-old product at this point. I'd hope that we could rise above newness when appropriate.

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#67

Post by Baba_Chaghaloo » Fri, May 11, 2012, 10:04 PM UTC

Diaspora is actually looking pretty good, I'm pleasantly surprised but am I the only one a little disappointed that they made it with Ruby? Probably. But looking through that jungle of code I wonder how far along they'd be if they had used Drupal and let that army of developers contribute with separate modules.

I'd love to tinker with it but I know whatever I do will probably break it when they update their code.

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#68

Post by hkmurakami » Fri, May 11, 2012, 10:12 PM UTC

grippi wrote: post #47

tylermenezes wrote: post #15

For anyone who missed it because it was at the very end: Diaspora just announced they're in YCombinator S12.

and very excited at that!

I know my comment is meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but I can't help but expressing them here:

I really hope you guys "make it".

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#69

Post by hkmurakami » Fri, May 11, 2012, 10:16 PM UTC

conanite wrote: post #11

Either businessweek.com needs a new proof-reader, or I'd like to order a pair of "increasingly large security breeches", they sound hilariously comfortable. Although I might not be allowed on an airplane wearing them.

I was having a related conversation with a friend yesterday.

You can classify readers in two groups: those who get severely annoyed by (supposedly) "small" mistakes like this, and those who don't notice that a mistake exists.

If this is true, then as a professional, you should always make sure to fix those mistakes. By any stretch of the imagination, Businessweek probably considers itself to be a professional publication; it'd do them well to have a more thorough editing process.

(this reminds me of when I wrote a paper on the Hindenburg disaster in college, and instead of air ship, I wrote air shit. The instructor was merciful.)

Also, I don't consider your observation to be a nitpick at all. A nitpick would be to urge someone to avoid using "lorry" in a sentence because the publication is aimed towards a non-British audience.

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#70

Post by eavc » Fri, May 11, 2012, 10:26 PM UTC

fromhet wrote: post #29

darksaga wrote: post #25

I'm actually glad they are continuing on and fighting the stigma of the "best social network that never was". I have used Diaspora's site for a while and prefer it to Facebook and Google+. The problem is trying to maintain three separate social networks. Since most of the people I like to keep up with are on FB and G+, my use of Diaspora has slowed down over the past year or so.

What kind of people use G+? Only times I visit is when linked, and it's often some OSS-guru who has written something there but I dont ever use it, nor does anyone I know, not even remotely.

I have a group of 20 or so friends who all use it because we've got them using it. Every Friday we start a thread and it gets up to several dozen or even hundreds of comments.

These are average, non-technical men and women in their 20s and early 30s mostly.