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Is there a reasonable, open-source, distributed Facebook alternative? I presume built on top of RSS / Atom / something feeds that are available only on authent

Is there a reasonable, open-source, distributed Facebook alternative? I presume built on top of RSS / Atom / something feeds that are available only on authentication (so I can share with limited sets of people.) I presume I have to keep running a server to host content. Maybe I can host encrypted content for my friends, too? So, federated. Maybe it even makes it easy for me to bill them, if the costs are prohibitive? I'm pretty sure I'd want an Android App to talk to it. The Android app would talk to all of the servers that host my friends' contents. It doesn't let me share with "Friends of Friends" directly. My friends would have to Reshare, I guess. And then I guess I can't interact with them. Not sure how I want conversations to work. It'd be hard for me to offer a server to my friends, without me having access to their social data. Maybe everyone needs their own server?

geogra4 9y ago
Diaspora?
zaarn 9y ago
I don't think everyone needs their own facebook server (or diaspora in this case). I'm more in favor of the federated approach where a couple people run servers for their community (I run a server for a fandom community I participate in regularly). People that use my server play by my house rules, if they don't like that they can pick another server or run their own.
NoGravitas 9y ago
Diaspora[0] and Hubzilla[1] exist, but never really caught on for various reasons, possibly nothing more than that they came out too soon. There is a project to build a Facebook replacement that federates with ActivityPub[2], which would make it to Facebook what Mastodon[3] is to Twitter. However, I don't want to link it because it's in too early a stage to face HN levels of scrutiny. There is also Patchwork[4], a peer-to-peer social application built on top of the Secure Scuttlebutt Protocol. It doesn't have all the features you'd want yet, but ticks off the boxes some people care about. [0]: https://diasporafoundation.org/ https://diasporafoundation.org/ [1]: https://project.hubzilla.org/page/hubzilla/hubzilla-project https://project.hubzilla.org/page/hubzilla/hubzilla-project [2]: https://activitypub.rocks/ https://activitypub.rocks/ [3]: https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/ [4]: https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork
LinuxBender 9y ago
Most people won't host their own server. I am not speaking for the HN crowd. In general, people just are not interested enough in learning how to do this or stay on top of patches. To answer your question though, honestly any blogging software that support good ol' fashion RSS feeds would be fine. Your group of friends could link to each others feeds. With a little effort, you could probably do this server side using some fashion of RPC call. Each language has it's own way to accomplish this.
- wybiral 9y ago
  I agree with the RSS point. There were complaints about content being hard to monetize with RSS but the way that social media spreads links seems possible (just put a summary and make the feed entry a link to the main content where you can have ads). Some kind of feed specification like that and a diversity of publishing and aggregation platforms would be healthier than this walled-garden approach.
- VikingCoder 9y ago
  For the "stay on top of patches" thing, that's why I'm a fan of sandstorm.io. It makes a bunch of sense to me. And, no, I don't want to broadcast info the everyone. A blog won't cut it. I want to restrict content to some people with authorization.
  - LinuxBender 9y ago
    For those cases, I have used software such as phpBB. Getting people to create a login is unpopular however. Some friends and I shared things similar to what one might find on FB. The distinct advantage was that our photos belonged to us and FB did not have access. The advantage and disadvantage is that my friends had to create accounts on my server. Centralized authentication services are low friction and high risk. If we move such things to another centralized service, it will just become the next target for snooping.
    - VikingCoder 9y ago
      I think OAuth makes some sense. So, use your Google or Facebook account to log in, but that's it. They don't get more access to our data.

geogra4 9y ago

Diaspora?

zaarn 9y ago

I don't think everyone needs their own facebook server (or diaspora in this case). I'm more in favor of the federated approach where a couple people run servers for their community (I run a server for a fandom community I participate in regularly). People that use my server play by my house rules, if they don't like that they can pick another server or run their own.

NoGravitas 9y ago

Diaspora[0] and Hubzilla[1] exist, but never really caught on for various reasons, possibly nothing more than that they came out too soon. There is a project to build a Facebook replacement that federates with ActivityPub[2], which would make it to Facebook what Mastodon[3] is to Twitter. However, I don't want to link it because it's in too early a stage to face HN levels of scrutiny. There is also Patchwork[4], a peer-to-peer social application built on top of the Secure Scuttlebutt Protocol. It doesn't have all the features you'd want yet, but ticks off the boxes some people care about. [0]: https://diasporafoundation.org/ https://diasporafoundation.org/ [1]: https://project.hubzilla.org/page/hubzilla/hubzilla-project https://project.hubzilla.org/page/hubzilla/hubzilla-project [2]: https://activitypub.rocks/ https://activitypub.rocks/ [3]: https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/ [4]: https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork

LinuxBender 9y ago

Most people won't host their own server. I am not speaking for the HN crowd. In general, people just are not interested enough in learning how to do this or stay on top of patches. To answer your question though, honestly any blogging software that support good ol' fashion RSS feeds would be fine. Your group of friends could link to each others feeds. With a little effort, you could probably do this server side using some fashion of RPC call. Each language has it's own way to accomplish this.

wybiral 9y ago
I agree with the RSS point. There were complaints about content being hard to monetize with RSS but the way that social media spreads links seems possible (just put a summary and make the feed entry a link to the main content where you can have ads). Some kind of feed specification like that and a diversity of publishing and aggregation platforms would be healthier than this walled-garden approach.
VikingCoder 9y ago
For the "stay on top of patches" thing, that's why I'm a fan of sandstorm.io. It makes a bunch of sense to me. And, no, I don't want to broadcast info the everyone. A blog won't cut it. I want to restrict content to some people with authorization.
- LinuxBender 9y ago
  For those cases, I have used software such as phpBB. Getting people to create a login is unpopular however. Some friends and I shared things similar to what one might find on FB. The distinct advantage was that our photos belonged to us and FB did not have access. The advantage and disadvantage is that my friends had to create accounts on my server. Centralized authentication services are low friction and high risk. If we move such things to another centralized service, it will just become the next target for snooping.
  - VikingCoder 9y ago
    I think OAuth makes some sense. So, use your Google or Facebook account to log in, but that's it. They don't get more access to our data.