11mo ago

What are some of the more novel forms of fediverse software?

By novel I mean not emulating an existing popular platform, e.g. Lemmy-Reddit, Mastodon-Twitter, etc.

30 comments

There's actually an exhaustive list of Fediverse software and tools listed on Fediverse.Party.
You can sort by category, protocol, license and code language.
- Any in particular you're fond of but don't see mentioned as much?
  
  Perhaps BookWyrm for keeping track of the books and such that I read and would want to read.

Socialhome with its tiled display of posts
Bonfire, which is modular, and will be available in many flavours (for Open Science, organisations or simply a social network)
Mobilizon - events and groups.
Gancio - events, published anonymously. Instance can be followed from Fediverse as an account.
Bookwyrm for books
Postmarks - a federated bookmarking website
Funkwhale - for uploading and listening to music
Castopod - Wordpress but for podcasting?
Misskey and its forks - more than Twitter emulation - includes emoji reactions and animated text!
- Thanks!

I'm developing some software to connect ActivityPub and email. It's been fun and I've learned a lot!
I'll upload a video in a bit!
- I'll upload a video in a bit!
  As promised: https://www.olowe.co/tmp/apsubmit.mp4
  
  Thanks, it looks cool! It brings to mind some of the terminal-based connections some have made, if I remember right.

Let me think...
Flohmarkt is like Craigslist or eBay
Honk - Ultra-ultra minimalist
Vocata - a general C2S-enabled server that allows you to throw any kind of Vocabulary you want at it. Could be useful for mocking up client apps.
Wordforge - federated novel-writing
SkoHub - Some kind of federated knowledge discovery system?
GreatApe - an OBS-like federated video thing that you can have live audiences with.
That's just what I could find from scrounging around, I know there's more.
- Thanks! Er...What does C2S in this context mean? I read over some of the details on Vocata (it sounds really cool!), but remain unsure what's meant by C2S here.
  
  Basically, it's the second half of ActivityPub that's for mapping an instance to clients. Most platforms on Fedi use bespoke APIs or copy Mastodon, but C2S is kind of more fluid and lets you build custom experiences and logic that hooks into it?
  What's cool about Vocata is that you can kind of just make up the vocab and activity you send out the Outbox. Vocata just shrugs and says "whatever, that's valid."
  It could be brilliant for prototyping.
- Amazing list. I would maybe add nostr and scuttlebutt
  
  Nostr is more of a protocol / network in and of itself, as is Scuttlebutt. Both legitimate efforts in their own right, but not quite Fediverse in the traditional sense. Though, with bridging, it's getting harder to tell where one starts, and another stops.
  Regardless, I would love to start a list of really esoteric Fedi software like what I have above. I know there's more, it's just harder to dig up.
- Oh cool! I'll have do some digging to see how skohub compares to wiki data!

Forgejo is working on federation over ap which I absolutely love! This could grow to be really big!
- Doesn't gitea have something like that already (or is working on it)? Or is that different?
  
  They‘re working on it. I think fogejo is just a popular fork of gitea.

There is ActivityPods which combines activitypub with Solid pods. It offers one profile, one inbox, etc rather than, say two Lemmy accounts and five Mastodons.
It looks okay but the big issue I see is that you're currently locked in with one pod storage provider. That should change as more appear I suppose.
Edit: I just gave it another try and now I remember why I gave up on it before. Despite all the lofty promises there isn't actually any way to connect existing fediverse accounts. It simply doesn't do what it says on the tin.
- So...it does do what it sets out to do, just not in the way you would think.
  ActivityPods doesn't bring Solid to ActivityPub accounts. It brings ActivityPub protocol capabilities to Solid Pods. The reason this is significant is because Fediverse platforms historically use relational databases, whereas this is like using Google Drive and files to create a graph database. Additionally, ActivityPods is a framework for building apps on top of.
  Damon, my friend and co-founder at We Distribute, is building a really killer app on top of it called Memory.
  
  Thanks for clearing that up, Sean 🙂
- There’s a lot of misinformation in your post. There’s not single pod provider. It does what it states it does. A platform/client needs to build on top of it. It doesn’t hurt to ask questions. It also doesn’t hurt to state that you don’t understand as opposed to making matter of fact statements and be wrong.
  
  There's not a single pod provider
  Not for Solid, no. The ActivityPods site, however, features a prominent "Create your pod" button that leads to the mypod.store website. I interpret that as a single provider, but feel free to dudesplain to me how I'm wrong.
  It does what it states it does. A platform/client needs to build on top of it.
  Oh, okay. So it's currently a staircase leading nowhere. I see the functionality in that. Thanks again for the valuable "well actually" snark.
  I apologise that I didn't provide a notice that I'm not a qualified expert and didn't reach out to the developers before writing a f——ng comment on Lemmy.