Fediverse

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fediverse (a suitcase word from “ federation ” and “ universe ”) describes a network of federated , independent social networks , microblogging services and websites for online publication or data hosting. The concept emerged in 2008 with GNU Social and spread in 2016 with Mastodon and the ActivityPub communication protocol defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 2018 .

concept

The idea of ​​the "Fediverse" is that it should be possible to create a user account on any platform in the Fediverse and to be able to exchange information about it with users on all other platforms without having to create another account there. This is made possible by the fact that the individual platforms are connected to one another by means of certain communication protocols and the federated identity and content are thus distributed to other connected platforms and entities. This practice is in contrast to the practice of closed social networks such as Twitter or Facebook , in which users need their own user account in each of the networks if they want to interact with other users of the respective network.

Concept and delimitation

The term “Fediverse” was first used in connection with the OStatus protocol used by various social networks . In 2018, this was expanded to include services that use the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon. In an expanded definition, networks such as Diaspora , which uses its own protocol, are also included in the Fediverse, as the instances are connected to other platforms that are part of the Fediverse. Sometimes all decentralized networks that can serve as an alternative to networks like Facebook or Twitter are referred to as Fediverse.

The ambiguity of the exact definition creates some problems. For example, it cannot be assumed that all platforms in the Fediverse are actually compatible with one another in all functions and that content can be transferred from every platform to all others. This depends on the respective implementation and the protocol used. All the individual platforms have in common that they are decentralized, distributed social networks and free software .

Historical development

The concept of the Fediverse came up in 2008 with the social network identi.ca , which uses the software GNU Social . For a long time only a few other entities existed besides the identi.ca server, mostly operated by individuals for their personal use. This changed in 2011/2012 when there were increasing problems on identi.ca and the platform was switched to new software ( pump.io ). In the course of the migration from identi.ca, several other GNU social instances were opened.

Parallel to the development of GNU Social, other projects such as Friendica , Hubzilla, Mastodon or Pleroma implemented the OStatus protocol, which expanded the Fediverse more and more.

In January 2016, the W3C presented the ActivityPub communication protocol , which is intended to improve the interoperability of the various platforms. This protocol is now fully or partially supported by various platforms. These platforms also use other communication protocols at the same time, making them part of the Fediverse. The degree of integration and thus the interoperability between the individual platforms and networks is different. Even within a communication protocol, not all platforms are connected to one another - even though this is the goal of protocols like ActivityPub.

Communication protocols and instances

The web platforms that together make up the Fediverse are all free software. Some are similar to Twitter (for example Mastodon or GNU Social, similar in their microblogging function and user interactions), while others offer more communication and transaction options that are more comparable to Google+ or Facebook (such as Diaspora, Friendica and Hubzilla).

Part of the Fediverse are platforms that use communication protocols that connect multiple platforms in the Fediverse. Some use multiple protocols. Protocols used in Fediverse are:

  • ActivityPub ; implemented by Mastodon, Friendica, Pleroma, Peertube, Hubzilla, and others
  • DFRN ; implemented by Friendica
  • Diaspora ; implemented by Diaspora, Friendica, Hubzilla, and others
  • OStatus ; implemented by GNU Social, Friendica, Mastodon, Hubzilla, and more

Cloud network protocols such as the Open Cloud Mesh used by OwnCloud and Nextcloud are also rarely included, as Nextcloud partially supports ActivityPub and thus has a connection to Fediverse.

distribution

It is not possible to specify the number of connected instances and users precisely, as statistics are only recorded via opt-in . These do not make a statement about the overall distribution of the Fediverse; Statements can only be made about the minimum distribution; the actual distribution can be higher. As of December 31, 2018, a statistics server had knowledge of 4,340 instances (servers), which are divided into 13 major projects, the three most dynamic projects from April to the end of December 2018 are Mastodon (+600,858 users +717 new instances), Pleroma (+2,535 Users, +286 instances) and PeerTube (+7,382 users, +188 instances), the new PixelFed project (+3,668 users, +34 instances) is also noteworthy. A total of 2,474,601 users were registered who wrote 217 million messages. Around half of the users were active within the last six months.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eileen Brown: Is Mastodon the new social media star, or imploding black hole? In: zdnet.com. April 17, 2017, accessed December 5, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Leena Simon: Alternatives to Facebook. In: Mittelbayerische. April 13, 2018, accessed December 5, 2018 .
  3. ↑ John Hilton III (Ed.): Teaching Religion Using Technology in Higher Education . Routledge, New York 2018, ISBN 9781351616584 , p. 104 .
  4. ↑ Monika Ermert: No-Spy Conference: CryptoParties are out, more Fediverse is in. In: heise. June 18, 2018, accessed December 5, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Sean O'Brien: Facebook Domination vs. Self-determination. In: boingboing.net. July 18, 2018, accessed December 5, 2018 .
  6. ↑ framagit.org/hubzilla/: gnusoc master hubzilla / addons. Accessed July 17, 2018 .
  7. ↑ pleroma.social: Pleroma. Retrieved July 17, 2018 .
  8. ↑ github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/: ActivityPub support # 1557. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
  9. ↑ ActivityPub support in Friendica. In: friendi.ca project blog. November 18, 2018, accessed December 6, 2018 .
  10. ↑ framagit.org/hubzilla/: pubcrawl master hubzilla / addons. Accessed July 17, 2018 .
  11. ↑ github.com/friendica/: DFRN2. (PDF) Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
  12. ↑ wiki.geant.org: Open Cloud Mesh. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
  13. ↑ fediverse network, 2018 Report. December 31, 2018, accessed January 2, 2019 .
  14. ^ The Federation - A statistics hub. Retrieved December 6, 2018 .