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Six Years of Gemini

geminiprotocol.net

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Re: Six Years of Gemini

#141

Post by uamgeoalsk »

rglullis wrote: post #140
bayindirh wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also arguably the reason that the Fediverse can not manage to grow to more than 1 million MAU. Shall the number go up indefinitely? I don't believe so. Something can be attractive to a group of people and the number may float somewhere as people come and go. If the main aim is to make "the line go up", then the users become the product, and this is what I'm against in the first place. > The solution to this is…

> Shall the number go up indefinitely? False dichotomy. > Also, if we should give people all the power they need, then we arrive to the abolishing all law and regulation in all areas of the life (...) Non-sequitur. > The tool is the result of exponentially increasing complexity of doing something simple. The tool is for someone that needs to solve a problem at a different scale than what you and I need. You don't hav…

That “alcoholic” metaphor? Seriously, what the hell. You don’t have to like Gemini, but reducing the people who use it to self-loathing addicts is ridiculous.

I use Gemini because I enjoy it. That’s it. It’s fun. It’s weird. It scratches an itch that the modern web doesn’t. Maybe that’s not your thing — fine. But why does someone’s personal enjoyment of a simpler protocol have to be pathologized?

Not everything needs to be justified by some grand ideological framework. Sometimes people just like stuff — and that’s enough. You claim to want to understand different perspectives, but this kind of framing makes it pretty clear you’ve already decided which ones are valid.

If you're really trying to steelman Gemini, maybe start by recognizing that people can engage with technology for all kinds of reasons — curiosity, aesthetics, nostalgia, minimalism, fun — and they don’t owe you a manifesto to justify it.

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#142

Post by ipcress_file »

grep_name wrote: post #76
jmclnx wrote: post #73

FWIW, I have moved my WEB site to Gemini an decided a little later to mirror it on gopher (for fun). I find maintaining these 2 sites far easier then dealing with html and the *panels I need to use to upload to my old WEB site. People who have never viewed Gemini are missing some decent content.

I checked out gemini maybe four years ago? And I remember really liking the idea but struggling to find content. Got any tips?

Here are a few more:

gemini://calcuode.com/gmisub-aggregate.gmi

gemini://nytpu.com/feed.gmi

gemini://skyjake.fi/lagrange/getting_started.gmi

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#143

Post by RiverCrochet »

miragecraft wrote: post #131
RiverCrochet wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I liked about Gemini and its self-imposed limitations is that it was very much impossible to create a misbehaving Gemini document. There is no way a Gemini browser will phone home, run malicious code on my side, grab/upload my browser history or send sensor or other data because I forgot to turn off various options, etc. To me the entire thing was much more trustworthy. You can of course recreate this exper…

Instead of inventing a separate protocol, you can invent your own html meta tag that marks a website to be JavaScript-free. This will let you create search engines that crawl and index these sites specifically.

With .gmi files or "gemini://" URLs and a compliant Gemini client, I don't need to even need to load the document beforehand to know if it intends to execute code on my device or not. It already won't by design, it won't in the future, and it doesn't require settings management, vendor whitelisting, popups, or caring who makes the browser for me to make it behave that way.

Whereas that .html document with it's noexec meta tag might be updated in the future to suddenly contain code.

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#144

Post by zzo38computer »

anthk wrote: post #68
snvzz wrote: post #35

This is just somebody's "finished" pet protocol (author did not allow anybody to give input). Narcissism we should not enable. I will stick to gopher, as it is mature and much friendlier to low spec / retro machines.

Gopher user there from texto-plano (and seldomly, SDF). Gopher often sucks for 40x25 devices or mobile ones. Yes, word wrapping, but everyone uses the 72 char limit or even doesn't give a heck and I have to set my own $PAGER calling fmt, fold or par before less. On TLS, you are right. But I've got to build BearSSL and some libreSSL for for Damn Small Linux. The 2.4 kernel one, were ALSA was a novely and DMIX was hard…

One issue I have with BearSSL is that it does not currently implement TLS 1.3, as far as I can tell.

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#145

Post by floren »

uamgeoalsk wrote: post #119
floren wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2019: Gemini introduced 2022-ish: Titan created (based on existed of https://web.archive.org/web/20220126075826/https://transjovi... ). The spec for Titan ( https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/transjovian.org/titan/page/The... ?) appears to be an implementation of PUT for Gemini, but since Gemini doesn't have verbs (GET is implied) it does it by creating a whole new "protocol" titan:// So you're right, they didn't extend t…

Your use of "they" here is misleading. Many, if not most, people in the Gemini community see no need for Titan. The existence of a new protocol doesn’t imply that Gemini is somehow lacking. A Gemini client that doesn’t support Titan is still a fully-featured Gemini client. Additionally, your description of Spartan is simply incorrect. There are several significant differences between it and Gemini - the most obvious…

You're right, I mischaracterized Spartan. Although it is very similar to Gemini, it's not compatible because the author decided even 2-digit response codes were foolish luxury, and as you mentioned there's the TLS thing. Of course, we still call it HTTP even when it transits a TLS connection, but that's not The Gemini Way so...

True minimalists will, of course, use the Mercury protocol: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/floren/mercury/master/SPEC

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#146

Post by rglullis »

uamgeoalsk wrote: post #141
rglullis wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shall the number go up indefinitely? False dichotomy. > Also, if we should give people all the power they need, then we arrive to the abolishing all law and regulation in all areas of the life (...) Non-sequitur. > The tool is the result of exponentially increasing complexity of doing something simple. The tool is for someone that needs to solve a problem at a different scale than what you and I need. You don't hav…

That “alcoholic” metaphor? Seriously, what the hell. You don’t have to like Gemini, but reducing the people who use it to self-loathing addicts is ridiculous. I use Gemini because I enjoy it. That’s it. It’s fun. It’s weird. It scratches an itch that the modern web doesn’t. Maybe that’s not your thing — fine. But why does someone’s personal enjoyment of a simpler protocol have to be pathologized? Not everything needs…

> people can engage with technology for all kinds of reasons — curiosity, aesthetics, nostalgia, minimalism, fun

Fine! The same thing could be said about retrocomputing enthusiasts. If that's only a hobby, go on and be merry. But don't go around acting like this hobby is an actual, practical solution to the problems of the modern web.

This whole thread started because I asked "you are looking for a way to get rid of the annoying issues of the modern www. What is the solution that solves this with the least amount of work?", and you and 3 other people are insisting that alternative A is the best one, but as the conversation went on you are resorting to "I don't owe you a manifesto to justify it".

Well, guess what? If you are willing to make the extraordinary claim that developing a whole protocol and applications to replace HTTP browsers is better than taking 5 minutes to install any decent browser, then yes, you kind do owe a reasonable explanation, and "I use it because I enjoy it" is. not. that.

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#147

Post by Gormo »

rglullis wrote: post #110
Gormo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you that with Gemini? You keep it isolated from the ecosystem in which all of those things are taking place. > The moment this "parallel ecosystem" showed any content that hinted at something lucrative, you will have people creating bridges between the two networks. Case in point: Google and USENET. The whole point is to minimize the chance of that happening -- by limiting mainstream appeal, keeping it a nic…

> and to maximize the friction of bridging these two ecosystems. There is no friction. It's trivial to write a program that can scrape a Gemini network. If there is no one pulling data from Gemini servers yet, is not because it's difficult do it, but merely because it's still too small to be relevant.

> There is no friction. It's trivial to write a program that can scrape a Gemini network.

It's not trivial at all. First, you have to want to do it, then you have to commit time and effort to doing it, then you have to maintain the solution you deploy specifically for Gemini in parallel to your web scraping architecture.

> If there is no one pulling data from Gemini servers yet, is not because it's difficult do it, but merely because it's still too small to be relevant.

Exactly. But it if was using web tech, all of the existing web scrapers could just be pointed at it with minimal effort. So using a separate, custom tech stack is what keeps the threshold of effort in front the threshold of desire.

And using a separate tech stack also creates intentional friction in terms of new user adoption, keeping it slow and maintaining the protocol's niche status. So this also helps keep that threshold of desire distant.

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#148

Post by Gormo »

SoftTalker wrote: post #104
Gormo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Though there are any number of nonstandard things you can do over HTTP to restrict your community from the unwashed eternal september noobs from joining it. But why would you bother with that, when your whole goal is to create an ecosystem that's separate from the web in the first place? > Consider the fact that TFA is already proxied over HTTP just so more than 3 people will read it. Seems more sane to be HTTP nat…

> Podcasts are often rehosted on YouTube I actually don't know of any other way to get them. I suspect I'm not alone. That's how pervasive the dominant platforms are.

> I actually don't know of any other way to get them.

You can't actually get podcasts per se at all from YouTube. YouTube rehosts podcasts as YouTube channels, and doesn't itself expose podcast feeds.

Lots of people subscribe to podcasts through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, a long tail of various aggregators, or just directly subscribing to podcast feeds in their favorite apps.

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#149

Post by miragecraft »

RiverCrochet wrote: post #143
miragecraft wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of inventing a separate protocol, you can invent your own html meta tag that marks a website to be JavaScript-free. This will let you create search engines that crawl and index these sites specifically.

With .gmi files or "gemini://" URLs and a compliant Gemini client, I don't need to even need to load the document beforehand to know if it intends to execute code on my device or not. It already won't by design, it won't in the future, and it doesn't require settings management, vendor whitelisting, popups, or caring who makes the browser for me to make it behave that way. Whereas that .html document with it's noexec…

You can create a browser plugin that detect such tag and automatically turns off JavaScript.

You can even configure the plugin to detect if a page contains JavaScript while claiming not to be.

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#150

Post by rglullis »

Gormo wrote: post #147
rglullis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and to maximize the friction of bridging these two ecosystems. There is no friction. It's trivial to write a program that can scrape a Gemini network. If there is no one pulling data from Gemini servers yet, is not because it's difficult do it, but merely because it's still too small to be relevant.

> There is no friction. It's trivial to write a program that can scrape a Gemini network. It's not trivial at all. First, you have to want to do it, then you have to commit time and effort to doing it, then you have to maintain the solution you deploy specifically for Gemini in parallel to your web scraping architecture. > If there is no one pulling data from Gemini servers yet, is not because it's difficult do it, b…

> First, you have to want to do it, then you have to commit time and effort to doing it

Implementing a Gemini to HTTP gateway seems like a perfect type of weekend project for someone that wants to play with a new programming language. With that, any barrier that you think you have is gone. Crawlers will get to you no matter what.

> So using a separate, custom tech stack is what keeps the threshold of effort in front the threshold of desire.

You know what else you could do? Just run your web server on a non-standard port.

Seriously, the more you try to rationalize this as anything else other than hobby, the less sense it makes. Just go with "it's a hobby and I enjoy spending my time with it", and I promise I will get out of your hair.

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