The Fediverse

WebWizard@links.hackliberty.org to Fediverse@lemmy.world – 508 points –
63

If xmpp and matrix are included, why not include email?

Truly, email is (thankfully) mostly unspoiled as a protocol since it's beginning. Other than minor improvements and additions like HTML and spam filters and the like, anyone can host an email service and interface with anyone else on the Internet with the same protocol.

anyone can host an email service

Eh, no. You could in the 2000s, nowadays spam protection is so tight, and necessarily that tight, that you need at least a full-time position actively managing the server or you're getting blacklisted for some reason or the other. Other servers will simply not accept emails sent by you if you don't look legit and professional.

Definitely possible for a company with IT department, as a small company you want to outsource it (emails being on your domain doesn't mean you're managing the server), as a hobbyist, well you might be really into it but generally also no. Send protonmail or posteo or whoever a buck or something a month.

I've been running mine for just over 5 years now - initial setup was ass, but it's very much hands off now - email simply doesn't change anymore.

If you have a domain to test - I can host it for you. If you then decide that it works well enough for you - I'll show you how to set it up on your own server.

And bluesky?

Unpopular opinion maybe but it is / will be a federated platform (whether we like it or not) and there even is a bridge to Mastodon, I think.

@bobbytables@discuss.tchncs.de

there even is a bridge to Mastodon

To the whole Fediverse, just to it's microblogging side, and you can't follow users on Lemmy, so you can't opt in, but I have this account bridged and it's running on mbin

@WebWizard@links.hackliberty.org @khorovodoved@lemm.ee

Thank you! I didn't know the details. A recent article I read (about the hate the dev of the bridge received) only mentioned Mastodon.

This graphic is almost two years old, is it still up to date?

not really. kbin is kinda dead. long live mbin

mbin is everything I wanted kbin (and lemmy) to be.

What does mbin have that Lemmy does not? Should I switch to mbin?

If you're happy with Lemmy then don't.
This is mostly a mix of personal preferences and neat little differences I enjoy, plus I like the local community.

Then again, if you're curious, check it.

@jaybone@lemmy.world

What does mbin have that Lemmy does not?

IMHO much better integration with the rest of the Fediverse, it supports note type activity (posts without a title, thus supporting most of the Fediverse), it supports adding tags (#hashtags) to threads, it also supports boosting posts and a few more things like that

There will also be PeerTube support soon

@WebWizard@links.hackliberty.org @cron@feddit.org @originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com @massive_bereavement@fedia.io

I had never heard of mbin. I see it's a fork of kbin. What does it do differently?

its in active development, for starters.

the point of mbin wasnt originally differentiation of any kind, it was that the lone kbin dev did not share duties, or actually develop on a normal timeframe. this behavior kept kbin from flourishing and implementing all kinds of suggested, developed PRs.

it was forked to mbin as a community project where anyone who wants to contribute basically can by committee instead lone stewardship. you would need to check the repo for all the changes per version... but the best part is, its an active dev group.

Wait, Nextcloud has AP integration?

Yes, internally and also with a beta-stage Nextcloud Social app, but the builds appear to be out of date and not working that well with the latest Nextcloud installations.

https://nextcloud.com/blog/nextcloud-introduces-social-features-joins-the-fediverse/

https://github.com/nextcloud/social

The last release is more than three years old... at this point, I'd consider it dead.

There are still commits being pushed to it in 2024, but a lot of the open issues are talking about errors that apparently were fixed but not provided in a release.

BookWyrm was my first dip into the Fediverse, back when I was looking for an alternative to Goodreads.

Really surprised it's the only book related fork of the fediverse here

Do people not read any more?

I don't think this is the exact cause for the situation, but having more book related forks would probably just do harm by splitting up the audience. The book reading trackers are absolutely dominated by Goodreads, and any alternative desperately needs as much user concentration as possible.

I don't think you can correlate the number of readers to the number of book instances or whatever they're called. Most people (myself included) probably just use Goodreads, and BookWyrm is probably a good enough alternative that there's no need to spin up another.

Edit: according to this there's a lot of instances: https://joinbookwyrm.com/instances/

Most people I know who read a lot use StoryGraph, and mostly for personal tracking, not as a social app.

I know Threads sucks, but where would it fall on this? Another Networking one?

It would be an enemy aircraft hovering above the trees with a flamethrower, threatening to burn them down

Ohh so THAT'S what all those "I identify as an attack helicopter" people were talking about!

It is the aggressive megacolony of fungus embedding its mycelia in the base of the tree

If we're including xmpp and matrix, then we should include Email 🤭

Decentralized email? I feel like I could get behind that

Email in itself is decentralised. You can set up your own email server and send and receive from it. However, your emails will be often flagged as spam unless you perform some form of black magic and allegedly, you are more vulnerable to spam (although I have been running my own email for months now that's on the open web and hasn't been spammed). Some hosts like Hetzner and various ISPs don't allow you to open the ports needed for email, at least without giving them a ring and explaining why you need it.

I understand what you mean, having had to deal with SPF nonsense for a job back in the day. The SPF nonsense is what prevents selfhosting email, as you effectively point out yourself. If there were somehow a way to use federation to tackle that, it seems like it could be kinda cool.

I've been missing an alternative to Facebook that I can use for non-anonymous planning of events and communication in hobby groups etc. and I had never heard of any of the "Facebook-type" federated stuff before!

Now I just need to convince a bunch of people that this is viable to use without being the annoying guy...

Which of these are the Facebook ones?

Friendica, but it s still ..uh...far from ideal. It is a start, though.

It literally started in 2010, almost six years before Mastodon.

If you're looking for something that is to Facebook what Bluesky is to pre-Musk Twitter, it doesn't exist.

Otherwise, "the Facebook ones" are:

  • Friendica (intended to be a Facebook alternative from the very beginning, designed to federate with everything that moves)
  • Hubzilla (fork of (a fork of?) Friendica by Friendica's own creator, currently the most powerful piece of server software in the whole Fediverse, basically a federated Swiss army knife that can do Facebook as well)
  • the nameless thing in the streams repository (not in this graph, fork of a fork of a fork of a fork... of Hubzilla by Friendica's and Hubzilla's creator, less feature-laden than Hubzilla, but more modern and evolving at a rapid pace, the most advanced piece of server software in the whole Fediverse, but instances are hard to find)

I want a MySpace clone. Does that exist as an open source project in the fediverse?

Not fediverse, but a personal website on Neocities is customizable

Keeping an eye out for the matrix commune-os project to get to ActivityPub support. Them and Forgejo and Gitlab work to add AP support!