13 ms·

Pixelfed – Federated Image Sharing

284 points by octosphere 7y ago

really3452 7y ago
A large issue with federated social networks is that they are complicated to set up. It believe would be a lot easier to gain adoption if devs stuck to php5 instead of using 5 to 10 different hot and new languages.
- yogthos 7y ago
  Docker exists precisely to solve this problem.
  - really3452 7y ago
    Docker is a great solution for people that like docker. However, there is still a large barrier of entry to using the docker image as compared to a php5 implementation. My point is that a php5 solution would make one of these federated social network implementations accessible to a much larger audience.
    - rglullis 7y ago
      It would also make it accessible to all of the hackers that are more than using to exploit shitty apps implemented in PHP5. (I am half-trolling. I know that it is possible to write insecure code in any language, but the mix of PHP + popular codebases + "you can run anywhere you want" is a recipe for disaster)
      - r1ch 7y ago
        PHP 5 is also end of life and no longer receiving security updates. It's arguably one of the worst targets for new development.
      - mxuribe 7y ago
        So, I'll go out on a limb and assume that the original comments were related to php in general (say, the latter 7 versions - which are faster and receiving more updates/patches, etc.)...which tends to be a platform that is more easily accessible for most.
        rglullis 7y ago
        Yeah, I know. I am making no distinction though. I've been burned by Wordpress already, even with installations without any sort of plugins whatsoever. It will take many more years before I ever get to trust any code that is PHP (no matter the version) and that is open source. Its "easiness to get deployed" still translates in my head to "it is easy to be vulnerable without developers knowing" and I think the language is in an evolutionary dead-end anyway.
        mxuribe 7y ago
        Yeah, as much as i like and use php myself, I have to admit that you're not wrong. My hope is that present and future languages and associated environments get as easy to setup/deploy as php, BUT are more secure, prevent practitioners from shooting themselves in the foot, etc.
- mxuribe 7y ago
  Actually there are platforms that leverage PHP (e.g. Gnu social, postActiv, etc.) - see the "Programming Languages" section for examples: https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse/ https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse/ Also, I imagine for new platforms, people just tend to scratch their own itch, and use stacks that they know. I do agree that something that is common and easy enough - like PHP - is always a good idea in order to foster more participants...But then again, maybe as these newer stacks are experimented with, someone finally figures out an easy, solid, safe way to host these platforms...Who knows...maybe in 4 years time all of these platforms will have migrated to something like Rust (for its safety, speed, reliability, etc.) because it will be as easy as PHP is currently to set up...? (Caveat: I am not a Rust expert, so have only heard of its benefits through others, so only using it as a random example.) ADDENDUM: I will agree that everyone benefits from well-done documentation...so regardless of the underlying stack, if there is some really good documentation for helping people set up their environment, then that matters far more to me.
- MadWombat 7y ago
  > It believe would be a lot easier to gain adoption if devs stuck to php5 Why is language important? Do you expect people to install and configure PHP5 on their box? Or do you expect the software to support every possible PHP5 config out there? A network node like this should be a single command install. Preferably with a single statically linked binary, so there are no dependencies to install.
- hjek 7y ago
  Pixelfed is in php.
Lunatic666 7y ago
Is there a docker(-compose) setup I can use to give it a try? I think this would lower the barrier to entry a lot. I have a blog running on ghost I wouldn't have without a maintained docker container. I miss Instagram, pixelfed looks like a great alternative!
akuji1993 7y ago
There is a massive drop in nodes at https://the-federation.info/pixelfed https://the-federation.info/pixelfed. Seems like a SPOF host deactivated their 50 something nodes? Other than that I'm skeptical about this. If it doesn't host ads or any other money making scheme, how do you pay for servers to host some many pictures? Being image focused, I imagine the server gets expansive fast when your node becomes big. This might also explain the SPOF deactivating their node.
- eitland 7y ago
  Typically some fediverse hosts asks their users to support them on crowdfunding platforms while others are run by small groups and not accepting new members.
  - akuji1993 7y ago
    Okay, that might work for smaller groups. I guess my head is too much focused on hyper-scaling, which might actually not be the goal here... Other than scaling / hardware space, I think the idea is great btw. My first post sounded very negative, I actually like the idea a lot.
    - robjan 7y ago
      Think the idea is to have lots of small communities which can communicate with one another. If this ever takes off, I am sure that for-profit instances will eventually be founded as well and they may/may not contain ads as part of their business model.
    - eitland 7y ago
      I think you are correct now; a number of fediverse projects actively seek to avoid getting big. For example pixelfed creator has closed signups on his instance and mastodon encourages people to sign up for different instances (and I a number of existing mastodon instances has also closed signups because they are big enough, and everyone except banned users and instances can just federate anyways.)
    - 7y ago
eitland 7y ago
Let me mention that the developer is extremely productive and - in my opinion - talented. As far as I know he is mostly working alone one his spare time and works in another field during the day.
- rolleTx 7y ago
  In what field does he work during the day?
  - r3bl 7y ago
    Full stack development. His work hours have recently been cut, so if you know of a freelance project or a full-time position that needs to be fulfilled, get in touch with him: https://mastodon.social/@dansup/102409415828557030 https://mastodon.social/@dansup/102409415828557030
baidoct 7y ago
So, this is the new Instagram?
- skocznymroczny 7y ago
  Unlikely, outside of tech circles no one is interested or cares about federation.
  - onion2k 7y ago
    You might be right about people not being interested in federation on a conceptual level (or not, I don't know), but people certainly are interested in the benefits of federation can bring. People want more robust hosting, lower costs, and less dependence on centralized services. I think it's unlikely anyone would sign up to a 'new Instagram' built on this specifically because it's based on federatation but if it was marketed as more robust, cheaper and not dependent on Facebook then I can see non-tech people being curious about it.
    - Goronmon 7y ago
      People want more robust hosting, lower costs, and less dependence on centralized services. The people outside of tech circles that I know just want images to show up and they don't want to pay for them. I guess that those would fall under the "robust hosting, lower costs" section in a roundabout way, but "less dependence on centralized services" is pretty much the opposite of what people want from my experience.
      - onion2k 7y ago
        Meet more people.
        Goronmon 7y ago
        Right back at you.
Vinnl 7y ago
And here's its own Mastodon/Fediverse account: https://mastodon.social/@pixelfed https://mastodon.social/@pixelfed
cedricbonhomme 7y ago
Pixelfed is evolving quite fast. I am using it since soon one year. The community just needs more users and more instances. ActivityPub is really on the raise. I saw recently that https://people.kernel.org https://people.kernel.org is using WriteFreely.
- eitland 7y ago
  WriteFreely is also fantastic. Have been a paying user (edit: of write.as) since sometimes earlier this year and I have finally starting to write stupid blog posts again, including two who got some traffic from both HN and lobste.rs.
- johnmarcus 7y ago
  any plan to make the onboarding experience usable for the average person?
rohan1024 7y ago
This is how we probably should proceed with decentralization. The problem that I see currently with this approach is not many are willing to host there own servers. Even people who are fairly tech savy won't host any server because of the costs involved. I am not going to host a server unless I get benefit out of it or its dirt cheap to host them. The solution I think is instead of hosting it on cloud we host it at home. This way we have control over the cost. Again, if I can choose the kind of content that I am hosting then that would be great. I like to save images on certain topics. I don't mind serving them from my home since I already have unlimited data connection. Running a server on Raspberry PI would be ideal. There are already millions of PIs out there and they can be used for decentralization of apps. In the end, we might even be able to convince general population to host there own content. We will have to provide them tools and utilities to make hosting as easy as possible. The major problem I think is NAT which is preventing direct hosting of content from home. Solve that and you most probably have solved decentralization.
- olah_1 7y ago
  That's exactly what FreedomBox is trying to do. https://freedombox.org/ https://freedombox.org/ They have a lot of work to do on user friendliness and design though. I'd rather see something like YUNOHOST partner with a hardware provider.
- ashleyn 7y ago
  A major obstacle to your proposal is the near-universal blocking of port 80 inbound on residential ISPs.
  - rohan1024 7y ago
    I haven't seen this happening with Indian ISPs so far but have read quite a few responses here on HN which mention the same issue that you did. I think if we have enough momentum with self hosting sooner or later one provider will unblock ports and incoming connection and soon others will follow the same practice out of competition. Maybe I am being too optimistic here.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
justRafi 7y ago
where/what are the images actually stored on?
olah_1 7y ago
Part of the issue with federation is the very nebulous concept of servers themselves. What should my domain name be? This question alone is enough to stop someone in their tracks. There's only so many non-stupid sounding names. And should the name focus on a location, a hobby, myself? If I allow people to sign up, should it only be for people I know IRL? What if I mix online friends and IRL friends on the same server, is that weird? I'm looking forward to trying full decentralization tbh. Federation feels like a strange halfway house.
- antpls 7y ago
  I believe "federation" isn't supposed to be a federation of individuals, but a federation of small communities. You still have to be organized and grouped with some people around some goals or topics if you want to create a community and add it to the federation. As an individual, you can then join several of those communities in the federation.
dinghy 7y ago
What about licenses?
- masukomi 7y ago
  "Pixelfed is open-sourced software licensed under the AGPL license." or did you mean some other definition of "licenses"
johnmarcus 7y ago
the landing page seems dope, but then clicking through to joining is very confusing. What exactly is a user supposed to do? Do I need to run one of these nodes? any plan to improve the onboarding experience, or do we plan on just letting this die?
- zdunn 7y ago
  Yea pixelfed has always been bad at onboarding. It's been brought up before but nothing has improved except making a pretty landing page. On instances where registration is closed, the only thing you see is a message telling you that and external links.
- r3bl 7y ago
  Your user experience will be the same regardless of which node you choose, since you can follow people regardless of what node they're using. Every user account is constructed as @user@pixelfed.tld. But, yeah, onboarding is a rough problem to solve when your goal isn't for one server to contain all the data. It requires learning some new stuff that I couldn't be bothered to learn for far too long. If privacy-conscious people aren't willing to learn them, nobody will and these projects will just die.
  - cynix 7y ago
    > Your user experience will be the same regardless of which node you choose How do I know or find out who owns/runs the node I choose? Surely some nodes are more stable than others, and the user experience wouldn't be the same if the node I chose decides to shut down tomorrow.
    - r3bl 7y ago
      Here's how Mastodon does it: the owner's account is visible from the homepage of the node, the owner of every node that Mastodon includes on its homepage has agreed to give at least a three-month warning before shutting down, as well as to decentralize the control of the server to at least two individuals: https://joinmastodon.org/covenant https://joinmastodon.org/covenant I assume that Pixelfed wants to do something similar, but a little bit further down the line. As far as I'm aware, Pixelfed's current goal is to encourage people to start their own servers instead of relying on the main one. Whenever they feel like the main servers are gaining too much control of the network, they close the registration in order to pivot people to other nodes. Once other nodes start to stand out, Pixelfed will probably have more strict guidelines on which ones to link to.
yogthos 7y ago
I definitely agree that federation is the right approach for moving forward. This is how the internet was meant to work in the first place. One huge advantage of ActivityPub based federation is that every service that uses it can talk to any other service. So, you can share data between Mastodon, PeerTube, PixelFed, Plume, and any other federated platforms. This also allows different competing services in the same space such as Mastodon and Pleroma to work with each other. Meanwhile, traditional commercial platforms like Fb, Twitter, and Youtube have zero incentive to allow users to move data between them. While I agree that it would be great if people could just host via their ISP, VPS hosting has gotten both a lot easier and cheaper nowadays. You can get a Digital Ocean server for 5 bucks a month, and thanks to containers it's much easier to package and distribute the services. VPS providers will also often have cheap backup options. This dramatically lowers the barrier for managing a service.
- zdunn 7y ago
  Another major obstacle is the limited scope of a lot of these projects. Each project, excepts the microblogs, focus on a single media type and ignore others. So you still have to have multiple semi-siloed accounts to participate with various parts of the fediverse. As a pixelfed user, you can't interact with plume/write.as users or vice-versa. It's cool that I can follow all of these users from my Pleroma (or microblog.pub/mastodon) account, but they can't interact with me. It's only one way interaction.
  - metildaa 7y ago
    Pixelfed has incomplete federation support FYI
    - zdunn 7y ago
      Even when it's completed, it will never support incoming Notes/Articles/Any other AP type.
      - metildaa 7y ago
akeck 7y ago
Since people are constantly putting "Bad Stuff" on Instagram, Ello, etc., how does one deal with it on a federated platform? Is it up to each node operator to manage the liability?
- agentdrtran 7y ago
  It looks like there is a community policy, which seems good, but I wonder how it's enforced? https://pixelfed.social/site/kb/community-guidelines https://pixelfed.social/site/kb/community-guidelines edit: I was mistaken, this is only for the official instance. There is 0 anti abuse tooling for other instances.
  - Tepix 7y ago
    Just like on large centralized instances. Someone complains. Someone checks the complaint and acts accordingly. Chances are if you have a small instance with users you know personally, you will have less issues.
- tomatotomato37 7y ago
  Yeah, each node operator maintains his own instance. The idea of federation is that the user space is voluntarily split up enough between nodes that moderation can be handled by one or two individuals, unlike a Facebook or Instagram which needs an army of contractor labor and exotic algorithms to do the same thing. If you're trying to stop the propogation of "Bad Stuff" overall that battle has been pretty much lost with the invention of onion routing (or more likely encryption) so now it's just damage mitigation, in which case see above
- mxuribe 7y ago
  I'd encourage you to read the following: https://runyourown.social/ https://runyourown.social/ It provides answers that you seek, plus many other aspects - both good and bad.
goda90 7y ago
Instead of at home(well, it can be at someones house still), I feel like this could be the domain of local clubs. Groups of interested people can pool money to pay for server hardware(or space in a local datacenter), and a business internet connection. This also adds the effect that at least a core set of users know each other in real life, which can help reduce problems like trolling, illegal content, and spam. Also, their server is local. If they setup a mesh network, then they could still have services if the city somehow becomes disconnected from the larger internet.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  What's going to convince them to do that, rather than "join the Facebook group"?
  - goda90 7y ago
    My thought would be that there are probably multiple people interested in the idea of federation or decentralization in most moderately sized cities. If they find each other, then can start from there and spread the word.
  - jeffalyanak 7y ago
    You don't need many of the enthusiasts who are interested in setting up a community to support a much larger group of people who are only interested in the service.
- mxuribe 7y ago
  I really like this idea! There could be a mix of people who host their own instance at their home, but still interact with others who "live" on a host managed via some local club (like the homebrew clubs that are springing up again after so many years)...very cool! Cheers!
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  This is common in Amateur Radio where several folks pool resources to run repeaters which are often too expensive or complicated for just one person to run and manage.
Tepix 7y ago
This looks interesting. With Mastodon there's a gateway that will automatically post your messages to twitter. Is there a gateway to Instagram for Pixelfed? PS if you have a large following it could be interesting to publish to Twitter and Instagram only after a delay, encouraging users to go to the source (i.e. your mastodon/pixelfed instance).
- StavrosK 7y ago
  No, Instagram doesn't automatically let you post stuff to it in any way.
  - Tepix 7y ago
    Indeed, content publishing appears to be "in private beta" at the moment (since when?): https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-api/guides/content-publishing https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-api/guides/co... There's also a github project to explore the private API at https://github.com/mgp25/Instagram-API https://github.com/mgp25/Instagram-API
- mxuribe 7y ago
  I'm sure at some point the masto-to-twitter gateway didn't exist...and then someone asked for it and/or built it. Similarly, if there is no gateway between pixelfed and instagram, i'm sure it is possible...you can't be the only one asking for this. There is also the option to scratch this itch if this is something that is itching you. :-)
MadWombat 7y ago
I am confused and the docs site seems to be dead. Who runs the nodes? Where is the data stored? Is the data encrypted? What are the legal ramifications of running a node, like am I expected to moderate content people put on my node? What if someone uploads child porn?
- groovybits 7y ago
  The documentation is dead, but the project itself seems alive and well. I suspect the questions you present would be relevant to any decentralized/multi-hosted service, right? What's stopping someone from uploading illegal content to my own node? Nothing, really. These types of concerns are probably the biggest reason why I choose not to host publicly-accessible nodes.
- masukomi 7y ago
  there are moderation tool's and avoiding things like that has been a major concern of its creator lately. He's definitely aware of and working to help mitigate problems like that. HOWEVER no tool is perfect and if you have ANY site that allows people to upload things that is going to be a concern. On the other hand, that's why their are laws to protect owners of servers that can't reasonably be expected to look at everything that's uploaded. Without those laws youtube, dropbox, and other similar services could not exist. They'd be litigated into oblivion.
  - MadWombat 7y ago
    A centralized, commercial service, like Facebook or Instagram or Medium has ways to mitigate this. At the very least a staff of moderators and a legal department. But in this case, considering the distributed nature of this project, if I am running a node, I might not be aware that there is illegal content being stored on my system. And yet under the current legal system, I am pretty sure I could be liable. I am not sure what the recourse for something like this would be.
dewey 7y ago
I wish some of these new federated services would have nice, native (Like in natively designed, speaking the interface language of iOS / Android) apps. I think this would be critical for anyone to use it seriously.
- mxuribe 7y ago
  I've had very good luck with Tusky [https://tusky.app/ https://tusky.app/]...which i think was designed originally for mastodon...And i've been using it for my pleroma instance to great success.
  - jklinger410 7y ago
    I haven't been able to use any activity pub apps with pixelfed.
    - mxuribe 7y ago
      Ah, ok, sorry i thought the comment was more in the general sense of apps for federated services/platforms. While I have had positive experiences with apps interacting with platforms such as gnu social, mastodon, pleroma...but, I do not have experience with pixlefed. (Thanks for clarifying this.)
      - jklinger410 7y ago
        No problem. I see Instagram as a mobile-first platform, so the lack of an app is what is preventing me from using Pixelfed.
pmlnr 7y ago
Yet another federated system. Yay. Every single time I see another one of them popping up all I keep thinking is how some of us had their website for 20+ years. Interactions were first guestbooks, then pingbacks, then webmentions. And it works, it always had.
- gerikson 7y ago
  Pingbacks quickly became a vehicle for spam - I haven’t seen one in years.
monkeynotes 7y ago
The idea servers being up and down, potentially losing all your images to a dead server, and upload limits isn't ideal. I like the idea but Facebook is far more motivated and capable to fulfill my non-tech friend's needs. And without my friends sharing I don't think I'd adopt a sharing platform.
alias_neo 7y ago
Does anybody know if there's something that looks (simple) like this that I can host myself to share family photos with my family? Preferably something I can just spin up in a Docker container and point at an NFS share.
- mxuribe 7y ago
  "Simple" is a relative thing, so I'll simply point you to some options that exist, and you can judge for yourself: https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse/ https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse/ Also, Nextcloud has been used for the use-case you described...its less about sharing in the social media sense, and more about exposing a bunch of media/photos/videos that live on your local/home server or your VPS (that is running nextcloud). https://nextcloud.com/ https://nextcloud.com/
  - alias_neo 7y ago
    Thks, by simple I meant to use, I'm not concerned about the setup requirements. Also I'm looking for something more along the lines of the social tour sharing of photos where we can tag and label them as we share them. I've used next cloud briefly, is not quite what I'm after. I'll look into the other. Thanks
- 713233eb 7y ago
  Nextcloud can fit your usecase with the external storage plugin
- masukomi 7y ago
  making it trivial to spin up your own instance is a stated goal of Pixelfed. I'm not sure how close it is but last time I checked it wasn't bad. Just a series of simple commands to follow. so, to answer your question. Yes, Pixelfed is something that looks simple like that and you can host yourself. You don't have to open accounts up to random people.
  - alias_neo 7y ago
    By simple I mean it's interface, not the setup, I'm not _too_ concerned about the setup, but I'd like to try a few different options so the easier it is the more likely I'm going to try it. My concerns with Pixelfed are; first I don't understand how the federated part works at this point and how that relates to running a standalone instance, and also, it appears to be early days which is a risk, in my eyes to opening something in early development to the internet.
instakill 7y ago
Please ELI5 federated services like these?
- anchpop 7y ago
  Instead of making an account with e.g. Twitter, there are multiple sites such as BobsTwitter.social, Witter.com, whatever. No matter which site you make an account on, you can follow anyone on any of the different services, interact with their tweets, etc. seamlessly. Your information is only hosted on the site you made the account on. If you get banned from BobsTwitter.social, you can move to Witter.com and people using BobsTwitter would still be able to follow you without having to do anything special
rolltiide 7y ago
Incentivize.the.nodes Just add a token cmon Consumers are exempt, tokens are scarce, nodes compete
masukomi 7y ago
For those interested in hosting this project you should _absolutely_ follow them on Mastodon. The guy behind it is posting constant updates.
ivanhoe 7y ago
Is there a way to limit who can join the server that I choose to host?
Fnoord 7y ago
How will it deal with steganography?

284 points by octosphere 7y ago

A large issue with federated social networks is that they are complicated to set up. It believe would be a lot easier to gain adoption if devs stuck to php5 instead of using 5 to 10 different hot and new languages.

yogthos 7y ago
Docker exists precisely to solve this problem.
- really3452 7y ago
  Docker is a great solution for people that like docker. However, there is still a large barrier of entry to using the docker image as compared to a php5 implementation. My point is that a php5 solution would make one of these federated social network implementations accessible to a much larger audience.
  - rglullis 7y ago
    It would also make it accessible to all of the hackers that are more than using to exploit shitty apps implemented in PHP5. (I am half-trolling. I know that it is possible to write insecure code in any language, but the mix of PHP + popular codebases + "you can run anywhere you want" is a recipe for disaster)
    - r1ch 7y ago
      PHP 5 is also end of life and no longer receiving security updates. It's arguably one of the worst targets for new development.
    - mxuribe 7y ago
      So, I'll go out on a limb and assume that the original comments were related to php in general (say, the latter 7 versions - which are faster and receiving more updates/patches, etc.)...which tends to be a platform that is more easily accessible for most.
      - rglullis 7y ago
        Yeah, I know. I am making no distinction though. I've been burned by Wordpress already, even with installations without any sort of plugins whatsoever. It will take many more years before I ever get to trust any code that is PHP (no matter the version) and that is open source. Its "easiness to get deployed" still translates in my head to "it is easy to be vulnerable without developers knowing" and I think the language is in an evolutionary dead-end anyway.
        mxuribe 7y ago
        Yeah, as much as i like and use php myself, I have to admit that you're not wrong. My hope is that present and future languages and associated environments get as easy to setup/deploy as php, BUT are more secure, prevent practitioners from shooting themselves in the foot, etc.
mxuribe 7y ago
Actually there are platforms that leverage PHP (e.g. Gnu social, postActiv, etc.) - see the "Programming Languages" section for examples: https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse/ https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse/ Also, I imagine for new platforms, people just tend to scratch their own itch, and use stacks that they know. I do agree that something that is common and easy enough - like PHP - is always a good idea in order to foster more participants...But then again, maybe as these newer stacks are experimented with, someone finally figures out an easy, solid, safe way to host these platforms...Who knows...maybe in 4 years time all of these platforms will have migrated to something like Rust (for its safety, speed, reliability, etc.) because it will be as easy as PHP is currently to set up...? (Caveat: I am not a Rust expert, so have only heard of its benefits through others, so only using it as a random example.) ADDENDUM: I will agree that everyone benefits from well-done documentation...so regardless of the underlying stack, if there is some really good documentation for helping people set up their environment, then that matters far more to me.
MadWombat 7y ago
> It believe would be a lot easier to gain adoption if devs stuck to php5 Why is language important? Do you expect people to install and configure PHP5 on their box? Or do you expect the software to support every possible PHP5 config out there? A network node like this should be a single command install. Preferably with a single statically linked binary, so there are no dependencies to install.
hjek 7y ago
Pixelfed is in php.

Lunatic666 7y ago

Is there a docker(-compose) setup I can use to give it a try? I think this would lower the barrier to entry a lot. I have a blog running on ghost I wouldn't have without a maintained docker container. I miss Instagram, pixelfed looks like a great alternative!

akuji1993 7y ago

There is a massive drop in nodes at https://the-federation.info/pixelfed https://the-federation.info/pixelfed. Seems like a SPOF host deactivated their 50 something nodes? Other than that I'm skeptical about this. If it doesn't host ads or any other money making scheme, how do you pay for servers to host some many pictures? Being image focused, I imagine the server gets expansive fast when your node becomes big. This might also explain the SPOF deactivating their node.

eitland 7y ago
Typically some fediverse hosts asks their users to support them on crowdfunding platforms while others are run by small groups and not accepting new members.
- akuji1993 7y ago
  Okay, that might work for smaller groups. I guess my head is too much focused on hyper-scaling, which might actually not be the goal here... Other than scaling / hardware space, I think the idea is great btw. My first post sounded very negative, I actually like the idea a lot.
  - robjan 7y ago
    Think the idea is to have lots of small communities which can communicate with one another. If this ever takes off, I am sure that for-profit instances will eventually be founded as well and they may/may not contain ads as part of their business model.
  - eitland 7y ago
    I think you are correct now; a number of fediverse projects actively seek to avoid getting big. For example pixelfed creator has closed signups on his instance and mastodon encourages people to sign up for different instances (and I a number of existing mastodon instances has also closed signups because they are big enough, and everyone except banned users and instances can just federate anyways.)
  - 7y ago

eitland 7y ago

Let me mention that the developer is extremely productive and - in my opinion - talented. As far as I know he is mostly working alone one his spare time and works in another field during the day.

rolleTx 7y ago
In what field does he work during the day?
- r3bl 7y ago
  Full stack development. His work hours have recently been cut, so if you know of a freelance project or a full-time position that needs to be fulfilled, get in touch with him: https://mastodon.social/@dansup/102409415828557030 https://mastodon.social/@dansup/102409415828557030

baidoct 7y ago

So, this is the new Instagram?

skocznymroczny 7y ago
Unlikely, outside of tech circles no one is interested or cares about federation.
- onion2k 7y ago
  You might be right about people not being interested in federation on a conceptual level (or not, I don't know), but people certainly are interested in the benefits of federation can bring. People want more robust hosting, lower costs, and less dependence on centralized services. I think it's unlikely anyone would sign up to a 'new Instagram' built on this specifically because it's based on federatation but if it was marketed as more robust, cheaper and not dependent on Facebook then I can see non-tech people being curious about it.
  - Goronmon 7y ago
    People want more robust hosting, lower costs, and less dependence on centralized services. The people outside of tech circles that I know just want images to show up and they don't want to pay for them. I guess that those would fall under the "robust hosting, lower costs" section in a roundabout way, but "less dependence on centralized services" is pretty much the opposite of what people want from my experience.
    - onion2k 7y ago
      Meet more people.
      - Goronmon 7y ago
        Right back at you.

Vinnl 7y ago

And here's its own Mastodon/Fediverse account: https://mastodon.social/@pixelfed https://mastodon.social/@pixelfed

cedricbonhomme 7y ago

Pixelfed is evolving quite fast. I am using it since soon one year. The community just needs more users and more instances. ActivityPub is really on the raise. I saw recently that https://people.kernel.org https://people.kernel.org is using WriteFreely.

eitland 7y ago
WriteFreely is also fantastic. Have been a paying user (edit: of write.as) since sometimes earlier this year and I have finally starting to write stupid blog posts again, including two who got some traffic from both HN and lobste.rs.
johnmarcus 7y ago
any plan to make the onboarding experience usable for the average person?

rohan1024 7y ago

This is how we probably should proceed with decentralization. The problem that I see currently with this approach is not many are willing to host there own servers. Even people who are fairly tech savy won't host any server because of the costs involved. I am not going to host a server unless I get benefit out of it or its dirt cheap to host them. The solution I think is instead of hosting it on cloud we host it at home. This way we have control over the cost. Again, if I can choose the kind of content that I am hosting then that would be great. I like to save images on certain topics. I don't mind serving them from my home since I already have unlimited data connection. Running a server on Raspberry PI would be ideal. There are already millions of PIs out there and they can be used for decentralization of apps. In the end, we might even be able to convince general population to host there own content. We will have to provide them tools and utilities to make hosting as easy as possible. The major problem I think is NAT which is preventing direct hosting of content from home. Solve that and you most probably have solved decentralization.

olah_1 7y ago
That's exactly what FreedomBox is trying to do. https://freedombox.org/ https://freedombox.org/ They have a lot of work to do on user friendliness and design though. I'd rather see something like YUNOHOST partner with a hardware provider.
ashleyn 7y ago
A major obstacle to your proposal is the near-universal blocking of port 80 inbound on residential ISPs.
- rohan1024 7y ago
  I haven't seen this happening with Indian ISPs so far but have read quite a few responses here on HN which mention the same issue that you did. I think if we have enough momentum with self hosting sooner or later one provider will unblock ports and incoming connection and soon others will follow the same practice out of competition. Maybe I am being too optimistic here.
stronglikedan 7y ago

justRafi 7y ago

where/what are the images actually stored on?

olah_1 7y ago

Part of the issue with federation is the very nebulous concept of servers themselves. What should my domain name be? This question alone is enough to stop someone in their tracks. There's only so many non-stupid sounding names. And should the name focus on a location, a hobby, myself? If I allow people to sign up, should it only be for people I know IRL? What if I mix online friends and IRL friends on the same server, is that weird? I'm looking forward to trying full decentralization tbh. Federation feels like a strange halfway house.

antpls 7y ago
I believe "federation" isn't supposed to be a federation of individuals, but a federation of small communities. You still have to be organized and grouped with some people around some goals or topics if you want to create a community and add it to the federation. As an individual, you can then join several of those communities in the federation.

dinghy 7y ago

What about licenses?

masukomi 7y ago
"Pixelfed is open-sourced software licensed under the AGPL license." or did you mean some other definition of "licenses"

johnmarcus 7y ago

the landing page seems dope, but then clicking through to joining is very confusing. What exactly is a user supposed to do? Do I need to run one of these nodes? any plan to improve the onboarding experience, or do we plan on just letting this die?

zdunn 7y ago
Yea pixelfed has always been bad at onboarding. It's been brought up before but nothing has improved except making a pretty landing page. On instances where registration is closed, the only thing you see is a message telling you that and external links.
r3bl 7y ago
Your user experience will be the same regardless of which node you choose, since you can follow people regardless of what node they're using. Every user account is constructed as @user@pixelfed.tld. But, yeah, onboarding is a rough problem to solve when your goal isn't for one server to contain all the data. It requires learning some new stuff that I couldn't be bothered to learn for far too long. If privacy-conscious people aren't willing to learn them, nobody will and these projects will just die.
- cynix 7y ago
  > Your user experience will be the same regardless of which node you choose How do I know or find out who owns/runs the node I choose? Surely some nodes are more stable than others, and the user experience wouldn't be the same if the node I chose decides to shut down tomorrow.
  - r3bl 7y ago
    Here's how Mastodon does it: the owner's account is visible from the homepage of the node, the owner of every node that Mastodon includes on its homepage has agreed to give at least a three-month warning before shutting down, as well as to decentralize the control of the server to at least two individuals: https://joinmastodon.org/covenant https://joinmastodon.org/covenant I assume that Pixelfed wants to do something similar, but a little bit further down the line. As far as I'm aware, Pixelfed's current goal is to encourage people to start their own servers instead of relying on the main one. Whenever they feel like the main servers are gaining too much control of the network, they close the registration in order to pivot people to other nodes. Once other nodes start to stand out, Pixelfed will probably have more strict guidelines on which ones to link to.

yogthos 7y ago

I definitely agree that federation is the right approach for moving forward. This is how the internet was meant to work in the first place. One huge advantage of ActivityPub based federation is that every service that uses it can talk to any other service. So, you can share data between Mastodon, PeerTube, PixelFed, Plume, and any other federated platforms. This also allows different competing services in the same space such as Mastodon and Pleroma to work with each other. Meanwhile, traditional commercial platforms like Fb, Twitter, and Youtube have zero incentive to allow users to move data between them. While I agree that it would be great if people could just host via their ISP, VPS hosting has gotten both a lot easier and cheaper nowadays. You can get a Digital Ocean server for 5 bucks a month, and thanks to containers it's much easier to package and distribute the services. VPS providers will also often have cheap backup options. This dramatically lowers the barrier for managing a service.

zdunn 7y ago
Another major obstacle is the limited scope of a lot of these projects. Each project, excepts the microblogs, focus on a single media type and ignore others. So you still have to have multiple semi-siloed accounts to participate with various parts of the fediverse. As a pixelfed user, you can't interact with plume/write.as users or vice-versa. It's cool that I can follow all of these users from my Pleroma (or microblog.pub/mastodon) account, but they can't interact with me. It's only one way interaction.
- metildaa 7y ago
  Pixelfed has incomplete federation support FYI
  - zdunn 7y ago
    Even when it's completed, it will never support incoming Notes/Articles/Any other AP type.
    - metildaa 7y ago

akeck 7y ago

Since people are constantly putting "Bad Stuff" on Instagram, Ello, etc., how does one deal with it on a federated platform? Is it up to each node operator to manage the liability?

agentdrtran 7y ago
It looks like there is a community policy, which seems good, but I wonder how it's enforced? https://pixelfed.social/site/kb/community-guidelines https://pixelfed.social/site/kb/community-guidelines edit: I was mistaken, this is only for the official instance. There is 0 anti abuse tooling for other instances.
- Tepix 7y ago
  Just like on large centralized instances. Someone complains. Someone checks the complaint and acts accordingly. Chances are if you have a small instance with users you know personally, you will have less issues.
tomatotomato37 7y ago
Yeah, each node operator maintains his own instance. The idea of federation is that the user space is voluntarily split up enough between nodes that moderation can be handled by one or two individuals, unlike a Facebook or Instagram which needs an army of contractor labor and exotic algorithms to do the same thing. If you're trying to stop the propogation of "Bad Stuff" overall that battle has been pretty much lost with the invention of onion routing (or more likely encryption) so now it's just damage mitigation, in which case see above
mxuribe 7y ago
I'd encourage you to read the following: https://runyourown.social/ https://runyourown.social/ It provides answers that you seek, plus many other aspects - both good and bad.

goda90 7y ago

Instead of at home(well, it can be at someones house still), I feel like this could be the domain of local clubs. Groups of interested people can pool money to pay for server hardware(or space in a local datacenter), and a business internet connection. This also adds the effect that at least a core set of users know each other in real life, which can help reduce problems like trolling, illegal content, and spam. Also, their server is local. If they setup a mesh network, then they could still have services if the city somehow becomes disconnected from the larger internet.

cameronbrown 7y ago
What's going to convince them to do that, rather than "join the Facebook group"?
- goda90 7y ago
  My thought would be that there are probably multiple people interested in the idea of federation or decentralization in most moderately sized cities. If they find each other, then can start from there and spread the word.
- jeffalyanak 7y ago
  You don't need many of the enthusiasts who are interested in setting up a community to support a much larger group of people who are only interested in the service.
mxuribe 7y ago
I really like this idea! There could be a mix of people who host their own instance at their home, but still interact with others who "live" on a host managed via some local club (like the homebrew clubs that are springing up again after so many years)...very cool! Cheers!
vorpalhex 7y ago
This is common in Amateur Radio where several folks pool resources to run repeaters which are often too expensive or complicated for just one person to run and manage.

Tepix 7y ago

This looks interesting. With Mastodon there's a gateway that will automatically post your messages to twitter. Is there a gateway to Instagram for Pixelfed? PS if you have a large following it could be interesting to publish to Twitter and Instagram only after a delay, encouraging users to go to the source (i.e. your mastodon/pixelfed instance).

StavrosK 7y ago
No, Instagram doesn't automatically let you post stuff to it in any way.
- Tepix 7y ago
  Indeed, content publishing appears to be "in private beta" at the moment (since when?): https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-api/guides/content-publishing https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-api/guides/co... There's also a github project to explore the private API at https://github.com/mgp25/Instagram-API https://github.com/mgp25/Instagram-API
mxuribe 7y ago
I'm sure at some point the masto-to-twitter gateway didn't exist...and then someone asked for it and/or built it. Similarly, if there is no gateway between pixelfed and instagram, i'm sure it is possible...you can't be the only one asking for this. There is also the option to scratch this itch if this is something that is itching you. :-)

MadWombat 7y ago

I am confused and the docs site seems to be dead. Who runs the nodes? Where is the data stored? Is the data encrypted? What are the legal ramifications of running a node, like am I expected to moderate content people put on my node? What if someone uploads child porn?

groovybits 7y ago
The documentation is dead, but the project itself seems alive and well. I suspect the questions you present would be relevant to any decentralized/multi-hosted service, right? What's stopping someone from uploading illegal content to my own node? Nothing, really. These types of concerns are probably the biggest reason why I choose not to host publicly-accessible nodes.
masukomi 7y ago
there are moderation tool's and avoiding things like that has been a major concern of its creator lately. He's definitely aware of and working to help mitigate problems like that. HOWEVER no tool is perfect and if you have ANY site that allows people to upload things that is going to be a concern. On the other hand, that's why their are laws to protect owners of servers that can't reasonably be expected to look at everything that's uploaded. Without those laws youtube, dropbox, and other similar services could not exist. They'd be litigated into oblivion.
- MadWombat 7y ago
  A centralized, commercial service, like Facebook or Instagram or Medium has ways to mitigate this. At the very least a staff of moderators and a legal department. But in this case, considering the distributed nature of this project, if I am running a node, I might not be aware that there is illegal content being stored on my system. And yet under the current legal system, I am pretty sure I could be liable. I am not sure what the recourse for something like this would be.

dewey 7y ago

I wish some of these new federated services would have nice, native (Like in natively designed, speaking the interface language of iOS / Android) apps. I think this would be critical for anyone to use it seriously.

mxuribe 7y ago
I've had very good luck with Tusky [https://tusky.app/ https://tusky.app/]...which i think was designed originally for mastodon...And i've been using it for my pleroma instance to great success.
- jklinger410 7y ago
  I haven't been able to use any activity pub apps with pixelfed.
  - mxuribe 7y ago
    Ah, ok, sorry i thought the comment was more in the general sense of apps for federated services/platforms. While I have had positive experiences with apps interacting with platforms such as gnu social, mastodon, pleroma...but, I do not have experience with pixlefed. (Thanks for clarifying this.)
    - jklinger410 7y ago
      No problem. I see Instagram as a mobile-first platform, so the lack of an app is what is preventing me from using Pixelfed.

pmlnr 7y ago

Yet another federated system. Yay. Every single time I see another one of them popping up all I keep thinking is how some of us had their website for 20+ years. Interactions were first guestbooks, then pingbacks, then webmentions. And it works, it always had.

gerikson 7y ago
Pingbacks quickly became a vehicle for spam - I haven’t seen one in years.

monkeynotes 7y ago

The idea servers being up and down, potentially losing all your images to a dead server, and upload limits isn't ideal. I like the idea but Facebook is far more motivated and capable to fulfill my non-tech friend's needs. And without my friends sharing I don't think I'd adopt a sharing platform.

alias_neo 7y ago

Does anybody know if there's something that looks (simple) like this that I can host myself to share family photos with my family? Preferably something I can just spin up in a Docker container and point at an NFS share.

mxuribe 7y ago
"Simple" is a relative thing, so I'll simply point you to some options that exist, and you can judge for yourself: https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse/ https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse/ Also, Nextcloud has been used for the use-case you described...its less about sharing in the social media sense, and more about exposing a bunch of media/photos/videos that live on your local/home server or your VPS (that is running nextcloud). https://nextcloud.com/ https://nextcloud.com/
- alias_neo 7y ago
  Thks, by simple I meant to use, I'm not concerned about the setup requirements. Also I'm looking for something more along the lines of the social tour sharing of photos where we can tag and label them as we share them. I've used next cloud briefly, is not quite what I'm after. I'll look into the other. Thanks
713233eb 7y ago
Nextcloud can fit your usecase with the external storage plugin
masukomi 7y ago
making it trivial to spin up your own instance is a stated goal of Pixelfed. I'm not sure how close it is but last time I checked it wasn't bad. Just a series of simple commands to follow. so, to answer your question. Yes, Pixelfed is something that looks simple like that and you can host yourself. You don't have to open accounts up to random people.
- alias_neo 7y ago
  By simple I mean it's interface, not the setup, I'm not _too_ concerned about the setup, but I'd like to try a few different options so the easier it is the more likely I'm going to try it. My concerns with Pixelfed are; first I don't understand how the federated part works at this point and how that relates to running a standalone instance, and also, it appears to be early days which is a risk, in my eyes to opening something in early development to the internet.

instakill 7y ago

Please ELI5 federated services like these?

anchpop 7y ago
Instead of making an account with e.g. Twitter, there are multiple sites such as BobsTwitter.social, Witter.com, whatever. No matter which site you make an account on, you can follow anyone on any of the different services, interact with their tweets, etc. seamlessly. Your information is only hosted on the site you made the account on. If you get banned from BobsTwitter.social, you can move to Witter.com and people using BobsTwitter would still be able to follow you without having to do anything special

rolltiide 7y ago

Incentivize.the.nodes Just add a token cmon Consumers are exempt, tokens are scarce, nodes compete

masukomi 7y ago

For those interested in hosting this project you should _absolutely_ follow them on Mastodon. The guy behind it is posting constant updates.

ivanhoe 7y ago

Is there a way to limit who can join the server that I choose to host?

Fnoord 7y ago

How will it deal with steganography?