[-] humanetech@lemmy.ml 9 points 9 months ago

I maintain some lists too, PR's welcome:

4

Found via @gulovsen@mastodon.social's toot:

My reaction reading the following quote from #Wired...

"The #Fediverse apps are all built on a set of rules called the #ActivityPub standard, which is a little like HTML had sex with a calendar invite. It’s a content polycule. The questions it evokes are the same as with any polycule: What are the rules? How big can this get? Who will create the chore chart?"

7

Found via @Norobiik@nok.social:

When Meta finally gets serious about entering the EU is the time they'll get serious about #ActivityPub.

"The #EU’s #DigitalMarketsAct (DMA) is a 2022 legislation that regulates the digital market competition in the region. It prevents #TechGiants (#Meta, #Amazon, #Apple, and #Google) from cornering the market of a specific product or service, and allows smaller companies to compete against them."

Why isn't #Threads in the EU? The app tests the bloc's new #PrivacyLaw

[-] humanetech@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

One thing I don't get. Among the gazilion "Oh, it is sooo easy to do this better" complainers are countless developers and designers. This whole Mastodon thing is Free Software, where countless people spent some of their free time and energy to give you what there is today. Complainer devs and UX folks, are your PR's getting rejected?

12
submitted 1 year ago by humanetech@lemmy.ml to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
1
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by humanetech@lemmy.ml to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1230183

Just gave my satyrical take on The Splinterverse. Grassroots movements adopt an implicit "Divided we will be conquered" approach, where big corporate newcomers can easily disrupt with Big Marketing™ followed by an Eternal September by their user influx to the Fediverse. The Muskening™ already gave a taste of that.

Currently new channels are abuzz with the Reddit shenanigans, and there's potential for another influx. People are inventing names like "threadiverse" for forum-like federated apps. There's a broader vibe where people come to the realization that enshittification on proprietary walled garden platforms is inevitable, and that the old web is re-emerging with blogs and webrings. And the heterogenous Social Web with countless alternative federated/decentralized apps where there isn't a single gatekeeper. That opportunity certainly exists (as Meta likely know all too wel also).

The common name that has stuck is "Fediverse", or affectionally spoken the "fedi". Many say it is a bad name, and maybe it is. It is a name you get used to, though, and it is not easy at all to introduce a new name in a grassroots movement.

But that is NOT what I find important at all ..

The Fediverse has slowly matured during many years. That slow growth has shaped an all-important aspect: A vibrant culture. This is what all growth-hacking enterpreneurial minds easily overlook. There have been a shit ton of social media launched.. and failed. The big ones we have have their solid position with FOMO and network effects. Those who say social media is easy have survivorship bias.

"It is the culture that matters, stupid!"

I love all the quirky aspects of the Fediverse. The diversity and inclusion. The weird angles. And also, weirdly enough.. the friction. Friction to get on the Fediverse has also served as a filter. We now have 'competitor' decentralized social networks with Nostr and Bluesky. "Nostr is developing way faster.. come to us!" --> This is a purely technical viewpoint. Wait till you see what culture that creates. Technical buzzwords like "encryption", "censorship-resistance", "micropayment", etc. that seem like features may see all the wrong types being attracted to those networks.

What I feel is the biggest thing that is missing on the Fediverse is a shared vision, a common notion of where we are headed, where the potential of the Fediverse is, what we might achieve collectively.

It is "App focus". App app app app app ... Apps are siloes!

Related to "marketing against Meta" it was asked "Where is the Mastodon branding agency?" --> They branded an app, not an ecosystem / online environment. And them being successful means we have this big confusion now, where people "Join the Mastodon". We should get rid of app focus.

The vision that appeals to me, and I am advocating for quite a while is that of a Peopleverse to emerge.

  • Fediverse (technical) --> Peopleverse (social)

The Peopleverse is NOT a name.. it is an abstract idea, a vision of how things might be. The Peopleverse is where people find value online. Where they interact with others in a way that is enriching to their lives. It is where online and offline worlds are seamlessly intertwined.

Considered like that means that this Peopleverse will also have implications for the technical perspective, when looking at the Fediverse technology landscape and ecosystem. It highlights the amount of socio-technological support that is needed. It highlights a technology vision that encompasses the Fediverse's full potential.

1
submitted 1 year ago by humanetech@lemmy.ml to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml

"Hey, are you on Mastodon?"

"I joined The Mastadon network if that's what ya mean."

"Wait an instance. You are both using the Fediverse protocol."

"Ha. Well.. I joined the Threadiverse and like that way better."

"Is Lemmyverse connected to that?"

"Dunno. Let's ask at ActivityPub."

"Yay, beer 🍻 It is Friday."

"ActivityPub isn't a real pub, it is a community of sorts."

"Hi there.. dialing in from the #Pixieverse 👋 Can you see me?"

#Fediverse #ActivityPub #Threadiverse #Mastadon #TheMastodon #Lemmyverse #Pixieverse #Vidiverse #Web69

6
submitted 1 year ago by humanetech@lemmy.ml to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml

You can help by boosting my toot, but when offering help, the SocialHub forum discussion is the best place to do so.

[-] humanetech@lemmy.ml 45 points 1 year ago

That second comment by goplayoutside says it well: "Maybe the modest technical hurdles are a feature, not a bug."

I think it is a feature, and the same is true for Mastodon and the Fediverse as a whole, imho.

310
submitted 1 year ago by humanetech@lemmy.ml to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml

As Reddit's enshittification reaches new heights their attempts to suppress attention for alternatives, like federated Lemmy, has the opposite effect as this Hacker News discussion shows.

6
submitted 1 year ago by humanetech@lemmy.ml to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
1

Copying some of my thoughts from forge federation chatroom:


Hmm, I have bumped into repl.it in the past, marked it as "interesting" for myself, and moved on. Yesterday https://replit.com became the hot thing on HN (though on AI topics). Just again navigating the site now.. and here we see another platform operating on a breadth of services, that may just give Github folks a cold sweat. It is not all smooth.. there are quirks in the site. But they are highly innovative, it shows. And apparently raking in investment money. Here we have another one-stop-shop integrated experience offering "Help with Software Development". I wonder what this disruptive trend will mean for FOSS code forges in the future.

We are moving towards this:

  • Most devs: "We develop in Github / Replit / JetBrains / Gitlab.. it great. Highly productive."
  • FOSS folks: "Use our tools. We have a huge patchwork of them, and you must configure them all, copy/paste between, have manual processes, and who needs that slick UX, right?"

(Actually this is already the current situation)

The tagline on Replit is interesting (highlight mine): "Build software collaboratively with the power of AI, on any device, without spending a second on setup"

We are so used to the way we develop software now, that we think that setting all the infra, CI, docker/k8s, what-have-you, and then configuring/tweaking, documenting it in README and Docs comes with the job. Well, it does not. It is a huge time-waster and the low-hanging fruit of increasing productivity. Any platform that removes all that from the picture, turned into some point-and-click UI, selecting from a marketplace of dev environments, etc. will give any manager 🤩 eyes.. and competitive advantage. And that's only the start. There's so many other common chores to be taken out of the equation on one-stop-shop automated online platforms.

In this trend I also expect Git to die eventually. It is very powerful tool, and lovely to do common things. But devs hate it when more advanced Git things need to be done. In the one-stop-shop future, git is implementation detail abstracted away deep in the platform. You don't need to be aware of it, even when developing locally offline. Because you will do that based on a full-blown "dev environment" package that you obtain from the platform.

  • "I want to develop offline" --> sync local all-in dev package --> start package, code in package's IDE offline --> syncs back automatically when online again.

  • "I want to contribute to this other project with other infra/techstack" --> click & code --> done.

I might also highlight the "collaboratively" in the same tagline. Replit already offers collaborative coding where - similar to Google Docs - you see the other people's cursor and activities. But this collaboration will of course be scaled to include the needs of any type of stakeholder involved in the Software Development process. That this will happen is a no-brainer. Most software projects fail because of all the handovers between stakeholders with poor collab and communication barriers. The idea behind Social Coding and the Free Software Development Lifecycle (FSDL), is that we in the Free Software movement should spend time to fill the gaps in this regard, where the FOSS movement is even weaker than corporate IT world with our tech-mostly focus.

[-] humanetech@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

Thanks. Your comment is also only visible from Notifications. I created this issue: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/985

11

The recent Lemmy post with the "Can ActivityPub save the internet?" link, says there are 4 comments. They can't be viewed from Lemmy however. Copy/paste the URL in Mastodon and the comments become visible (they are all non-Lemmy commenters).

1
submitted 2 years ago by humanetech@lemmy.ml to c/activitypub@lemmy.ml

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/952618

Fediverse is going mainstream fast. And it is going to be a corporate hellhole if the grassroots initiatives that drove it to its current success are losing their grip on evolution in proper direction: Humane tech that is to the benefit of the people andd society, free culture thriving.

While corporate threads are looming, meanwhile the activated developer community is once again splintering, fragmenting initiatives appearing that dilute attention to focus on common efforts, cohesion, cross-pollination and collaboration. The "herding cats" problem of grassroots movements.

Great opportunity is now. Cohesion means that initiatives remain independent, but take care to coordinate with what is going on elsewhere.

👉 You can help! Avoid a CorporaVerse where you are exploited and milked. Bring attention to the opportunity and participate in the related initiatives to help bring them closer together. You might also boost my related toot.

11
submitted 2 years ago by humanetech@lemmy.ml to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml

Fediverse is going mainstream fast. And it is going to be a corporate hellhole if the grassroots initiatives that drove it to its current success are losing their grip on evolution in proper direction: Humane tech that is to the benefit of the people andd society, free culture thriving.

While corporate threads are looming, meanwhile the activated developer community is once again splintering, fragmenting initiatives appearing that dilute attention to focus on common efforts, cohesion, cross-pollination and collaboration. The "herding cats" problem of grassroots movements.

Great opportunity is now. Cohesion means that initiatives remain independent, but take care to coordinate with what is going on elsewhere.

👉 You can help! Avoid a CorporaVerse where you are exploited and milked. Bring attention to the opportunity and participate in the related initiatives to help bring them closer together. You might also boost my related toot.

[-] humanetech@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Apart from that The Pavilion cooperative has announced they work on a Discourse forum plugin for the Fediverse. And also I got word from the Flarum maintainer that they have plans to add support (but there's been silence after that).

Update: Here's a thread on Flarum's ongoing work: https://discuss.flarum.org/d/31943-federation-extension

[-] humanetech@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

With Gitea Ltd sudden incorporation, the soft fork of Gitea launched as Forgejo (which is what Codeberg now runs on) most of the forge federation efforts have shifted in that direction, as it offers the highest guarantees of remaining to the public benefit. Gitea has received a NLnet grant to add federation support, but it is unknown to what extent they are actively working towards implementing its goals. Those interested to learn more can join the Forge Federation general chatroom on Matrix.

[-] humanetech@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

Yes, I think people should skip to the "We have to keep going" section of the article to put the previous text in better context.

[-] humanetech@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago

Thank you for your participation in the FEP process. I am really happy to see this finalized, and also that Fediverse Enhancement Proposals is picking up steam to bring more standardization to the Fediverse.

[-] humanetech@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

Bit weird. An anonymous Google Doc, a screenshot of a toot saying "this is legit" and no other references. Could at least provide the URL to that toot.

[-] humanetech@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

Besides someone opting in, I hope that the person being quote-tooted also receives notification of that and maybe even notiications of all replies on the quote toot. This so it isn't a mechanism to "talk behind someone's back" which by leaving someone unaware makes it more suited tool for abuse.

[-] humanetech@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago

And someone might write the article: "Of course the Fediverse is threatened by the attention of the attention economy". Don't overly focus on whether Mastodon has attention-grabbing engagement features or not. It is an app, folks, just one app on the Fediverse. If you look around you already see how corporate interests are encroaching our space, testing the waters. And they won't always be single endpoints that you simple defederate with a single block action. Think of cloudflare for instance. Some corporate takeover and EEE scenario's were recently discussed on HN.

[-] humanetech@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

I read your post "The future is disruptive, and I can't wait!". And while I share your enthusiasm for the opportunities and potential of the Fediverse - I have been advocating them for years - I do not share the optimism expressed by the people on this thread as to the role of current Fedi culture and Free Software movement, if corporate interest comes. But I fully expected these kinds of answers.

Some time ago I had written notes on the related major fedi challenge of Complacency and intertia. Where the mere fact that we have decentralized technology gives people somehow the idea "We have arrived. We have won". There's the enthusiasm of the Early Web on the Fediverse now. The web that nowadays we call the "Corporate Web". A hyperlinked, decentralized web of information. Thwarted by hypercapitalism. There's nothing at all that protects fedi from going the same direction. All the years up to now FOSS movement have been in control. But we haven't managed to organize a strong "technology substrate" that gives much hope of holding our position with corporate interest coming.

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