Talk:Distributed Social Network Projects
definitional boundary
Just curious about how we are definiing "Distributed Social Network Projects". My understanding is that "social network" software refers to software that a) allow users to post short messages on the web ("microblogging"), making comments or sharing links, and b) allows users to "friend" or "follow" each other so they can receive, re-share, and perhaps reply to each others posts. A number of the projects now listed in this page are not "social network projects" by this definition, but provide others services such as synchronized remote backup of user files ("cloud storage"), eg ownCloud (FWIW ownCloud appears to be a zombie product whose active developers have moved to a fork called NextCloud, similar to the situation of Apache OpenOffice/ LibreOffice) Strypey (talk) 06:01, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Also, some these projects are may not be "distributed", such as Crabgrass, which AFAIK provides for group collaboration on one server, not a federation of services. Strypey (talk) 06:01, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree with your definition. If we can't discover public posts and follow people, then it's probably more appropriate for P2P Communication Software. --Dvs1 (talk) 15:16, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
- Hmm. I think "P2P Communication software" is specifically about serverless software where communication is sent directly between two or more peers running the software. 'GNU Social P2P' would fit there, and maybe one or two others. Crabgrass and ownCloud certainly wouldn't. Strypey (talk) 01:00, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
- Agreed. Although, I only added (and will only add) active projects in P2P Communication Software. --Dvs1 (talk) 02:12, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I'll be doing a second pass today. I had the same concerns about the projects you mentioned. --Dvs1 (talk) 15:19, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
dead projects
Lorea was a fork of Elgg, which AFAIK is no longer being developed. StatusNet development continues under the name "GNU Social". which is already on the list. I have moved these to "inactive development". Strypey (talk) 06:01, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
projects not fitting page definition
From a skim of their homepages, Nosferro and OSSN (Open Source Social Network) look more like CMS with social features, rather than distributed/ federated systems. Do we have any information that suggests that instances of either can federate to form a distributed network of sites? Strypey (talk) 16:54, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
thanks a lot--MIchel Bauwens (talk) 20:27, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
standards and protocols
Strikes me this list would be much more useful if each entry mentioned the standards and protocols used (eg XMPP, OStatus, BitTorrent, ActivityPub), to give an idea of which of these projects may be inter-operable with each other. I think it's also useful to include license information, and a note about the nature of the entity developing the software (lone developer, company, coop, not-for-profit etc). --Strypey (talk) 06:44, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
sources for more apps that might fit in this category
- list of social apps invited to use OStatus --Strypey (talk) 10:22, 8 May 2018 (UTC)