39
Diaspora* - is it any good?
(lemmy.ml)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
39 points (97.6% liked)
Fediverse
17734 readers
34 users here now
A community dedicated to fediverse news and discussion.
Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".
Getting started on Fediverse;
- What is the fediverse?
- Fediverse Platforms
- How to run your own community
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
It's been there much longer, for one thing. But from what I recall, it's been a mess specs-wise. I do especially remember Friendica/Zot's author despairing over how little they followed their own specifications. I'm not sure they're still relevant today
The Diaspora protocol is way better than it used to be, but it can't do half of what ActivityPub can do. Historically, Diaspora's protocol has basically been little more than OStatus with different threading behavior, some addressing modifications, and magic envelope encryption bolted on.
I've read denschub's positions in the past, and fundamentally disagree with him. While he raises a lot of interesting points in his writings on the subject, most of the limitations described have been largely overcome.
Unfortunately, he makes up a significant part of the current core team, and seems to default to hostilities any time the subject is breached.
Yea I was rather surprised by this myself. I somehow came across a thread of his where he was outright rage "I told you so" criticising AP/Fedi over the lack of interoperability between lemmy and masto. And while I'm quite sympathetic to the critique in general, it was rather telling, I thought, to see him spend so much energy describing all the "bad things" of a protocol/ecosystem he's not developing on.
Oh man ... that article (actually an interview by the same Sean Tilley in this thread and the founding developer of a bunch of fediverse stuff ... Mike Macgirvin) ... has Mike firing shots at the fediverse all over the place!! It's glorious! I had no idea this interview existed (it's from 2017).
But, from what I have been able to glean, a lot Mike's criticisms track pretty well ... especially this excerpt which, IMO, gets at the heart of what's wrong with the fediverse and what will probably be its undoing:
Just look at how lemmy and mastodon think of each other, as platforms, and how well they work together, despite having so much more in common with each other than just about everything else out there, not to mentioned being bound to a shared fate more than they want to admit.
To this guy, yes, though less to this article (that is pretty watered-down) than to the regular rants he posted to friendica/zot/... on that particular subject. Thanks for spotting his interview, though, brings black memories