Fediverse

The fediverse (a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe") is an ensemble of federated (i.e. interconnected) servers that are used for web publishing (i.e. social networking, microblogging, blogging, or websites) and file hosting, which, while independently hosted, can communicate with each other.

On different servers (technically instances), users can create so-called identities. These identities can communicate across the boundaries of the instances because the software running on the servers supports one or more communication protocols that follow an open standard.[1] As identities on the fediverse, users can post text and other media, or follow posts by other identities.[2] In some cases, users can show or share data (video, audio, text, and other files) publicly or to a selected group of identities, and allow other identities to edit other users' data (such as a calendar or an address book). The central feature of the fediverse is decentralization. There is no central authority that controls or determines what is acceptable as each instance is independent.[3]

History

In 2008, Evan Prodromou founded the social network identi.ca. He published the software GNU social under a free license (GNU Affero General Public License, AGPL). It defined the OStatus protocol. Besides the server, identi.ca, there were few other instances, run by people for their own use. In 2011 or 2012 identi.ca switched to another software called pump.io. Several new GNU social instances were created. At the same time as GNU social, other projects like Friendica, Hubzilla,[4] Mastodon, and Pleroma integrated the OStatus protocol, thus extending the fediverse (though Mastodon and Pleroma have since dropped OStatus[5][6] in favor of ActivityPub). In the meantime, other communication protocols evolved which were integrated to different degrees into the software packages.

In January 2018, the W3C presented the ActivityPub protocol, aiming to improve the interoperability between different software packages run on a wide network of servers. As of August 2018, this protocol was supported by thirteen software packages (see table below), and was the dominant protocol used in the Fediverse.

Communication protocols used in the fediverse
Excerpt of common protocols and platforms in the Fediverse (2022)

These communication protocols, which implement open standards, are used in the fediverse:

Fediverse software packages
The various platforms of the Fediverse, as well as other federated networks, visualised as a tree

Software packages used in the fediverse are free and open-source software. Some of them vaguely resemble Twitter in style (for example, Mastodon, Misskey, GNU social, and Pleroma, which are similar in their microblogging function), while others include more communication and transaction options that are instead comparable to Google+ or Facebook (such as is the case with Friendica and Hubzilla).

The following software packages span the fediverse by using the listed communication protocols:

Software packages used in the Fediverse
Software name Type ActivityPub Diaspora
network		 OStatus Zot
Zot/6
Aardwolf-Social[8] Social network Yes No Yes No
Akkoma[9] Microblogging Yes No No No
Anfora Image hosting In progress[10] No No No
BookWyrm[11] Book cataloguing Yes No Yes No
Calckey[12] Social network, microblogging Yes No No No
Castopod Podcasting Yes[13] No No No
diaspora* (software) Social network, microblogging No[14][15] Yes No No
distbin Pastebin Yes No No No
Drupal Blogging, CMS, image gallery, file hosting, microblogging, social network, website Yes[16] Yes[17] In progress[18] No
Epicyon Social network, microblogging Yes No No No
Friendica
(f. Friendika; orig. Mistpark)		 Social network, macroblogging, blogging, image gallery, event planner, groups Yes Yes Yes No
Funkwhale[19] Audio, sound hosting Yes No No No
Gancio Event aggregator Yes No No No
GNU MediaGoblin File, image, audio, video hosting Proposed[20] No No No
GNU social
(f. StatusNet; orig. Laconica)		 Macroblogging Yes[21] No Yes No
GoToSocial[22] Social network, microblogging Yes No No No
Guppe Groups Yes[23] No No No
Honk Social network Yes No No No
Hubzilla
(f. RedMatrix; orig. Friendica-Red)		 CMS, social network, macroblogging, wiki, blogging, image gallery, file hosting Yes Yes Yes[4] Yes
Inventaire Book cataloguing, reviewing and exchanging Yes[24] No No No
Kibou Social network, microblogging Yes No No No
Lemmy[25] Link aggregator, social network Yes No No No
Libervia Instant messaging, microblogging, blogging, file sharing, event management Yes[26] No No No
Littr.me Link aggregator, social network In progress No No No
lotide[27] Link aggregator, social network Yes No No No
takahē[28] Social network, microblogging Yes No No No
Mastodon Microblogging Yes[29] No Dropped[5] No
Micro.blog[30] Microblogging bloging photobloging podcasting Yes[31] No No No
microblog.pub Microblogging Yes No No No
Misskey[32] Social network, microblogging Yes No No No
Mobilizon Event and group management Yes No No No
Nextcloud Social File hosting Yes[33] No No No
OStatus[34] Social network, microblogging Yes No Yes No
OLKi[35] File/dataset hosting Yes No No No
Owncast[36] Live video streaming Yes No No No
PeerPx Image hosting Yes No No No
PeerTube Video hosting Yes No No No
Pixelfed[37] Image hosting Yes[38] No No No
Pleroma[39] Microblogging Yes No Dropped[6] No
Plume[40] Blogging Yes No No No
Prismo Link-sharing Yes No No No
Pubcast (f. Metapods) Netcasting Yes No No No
pump.io Microblogging Proposed[41] No Dropped[42] No
Read.as Feed reader Yes[43] No No No
Rebased (Soapbox-BE)[44] Microblogging Yes No No No
Socialhome Website, social network, microblogging, blog Yes Yes No Proposed[45]
Streams[46] Social network, macroblogging, wiki, blogging, image gallery Yes Yes Yes Yes
Tumblr Social network, microblogging, blog In progress[47] No No No
WordPress Blogging Yes[48] Yes[49] Yes[50] No
Write.as / WriteFreely Blogging Yes No No No
Zap Social network, macroblogging, image gallery, file hosting Yes No No Zot/6


User statistics

A number of developers publish live statistics about the fediverse on monitoring sites[51] like the-federation.info.[52] The statistics on these sites are an indication of usage levels, not a complete record, as they can only aggregate data from instances that use the NodeInfo protocol to publish usage statistics. There is no guarantee that all instances are known to these sites, and some instances may disable NodeInfo, or use software that hasn't implemented it. Some of these sites include data from any federated software that publishes it using NodeInfo, not just fediverse software.

See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fediverse.

References
  1. "Fed FAQ". Mastodon User Guide. Archived from the original on April 9, 2017.
  2. "What on Earth is the fediverse and why does it matter?". New Atlas. September 18, 2018.
  3. Okeke, Nnamdi (March 22, 2023). "Fediverse: What It Is And How It Works". TargetTrend. Retrieved April 4, 2023.
  4. "gnusoc · master / addons". Hubzilla. Framagit. Retrieved July 17, 2018.
  5. Mastodon. "Release v3.0.0". GitHub. Retrieved October 8, 2019.
  6. Pleroma. "ostatus removal". Retrieved December 29, 2019.
  7. Macgirvin, Michael "Mike". "Zot/6". Retrieved September 14, 2018.
  8. Aardwolf-Social. "Aardwolf-Social". Aardwolf-Social (GitHub). Retrieved October 23, 2022.
  9. "akkoma.social". Retrieved April 7, 2023.
  10. "Implement mastodon API endpoints #23". Anfora. Git hub. Retrieved December 10, 2018.
  11. bookwyrm. "Bookwyrm". Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  12. "Calckey". Retrieved November 9, 2022.
  13. "Castopod features". Retrieved November 7, 2022.
  14. diaspora*. "Support ActivityPub #7422". GitHub. Retrieved August 18, 2018.
  15. diaspora* (May 13, 2017). "Let's talk about ActivityPub". Retrieved August 18, 2018.
  16. Kristof, De Jaeger (swentel) (February 23, 2019). "ActivityPub". Drupal.org. Archived from the original on March 6, 2022. Retrieved March 6, 2022.
  17. Jason, Chambers (rurri) (March 2, 2012). "Diaspora Pod". Drupal.org. Archived from the original on March 6, 2022. Retrieved March 6, 2022.
  18. Stefan, Auditor (sanduhrs) (April 19, 2011). "OStatus". Drupal.org. Archived from the original on March 6, 2022. Retrieved March 6, 2022.
  19. funkwhale. "Funkwhale". Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  20. GNU MediaGoblin. "Move federation code to ActivityPub spec #5503". Archived from the original on April 11, 2017. Retrieved August 18, 2018.
  21. GNU social. "Milestone: ActivityPub - GNU Social v3". Retrieved July 18, 2022.
  22. "GoToSocial". GitHub. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  23. immers-space. "Decentralized social groups for ActivityPub". GitHub. Retrieved November 22, 2022.
  24. "Inventaire toot". mamot.fr. December 7, 2021. Archived from the original on August 28, 2022. Retrieved October 17, 2022.
  25. "join-lemmy.org". Retrieved July 12, 2021.
  26. "Libervia progress note 2022-W45". salut-a-toi.org. November 2022.
  27. "lotide". Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  28. "takahē". Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  29. Mastodon. "ActivityPub support #1557". GitHub. Retrieved August 18, 2018.
  30. "Micro.blog". micro.blog. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  31. micro.blog. "Mastodon and ActivityPub". micro.blog. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  32. "Misskey". Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  33. Nextcloud. "Nextcloud introduces social features, joins the fediverse". Retrieved December 10, 2018.
  34. ostatus. "OStatus". Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  35. "olki". Retrieved October 23, 2020.
  36. "Owncast v0.0.11". March 5, 2022.
  37. Pixelfed. "Pixelfed". Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  38. Pixelfed (December 25, 2018). "Pixelfed federates now". Retrieved December 31, 2018.
  39. "Pleroma — a lightweight fediverse server". Pleroma. Retrieved January 22, 2023.
  40. joinplu.me. "Plume". Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  41. pump.io. "ActivityPub support #1241". GitHub. Retrieved August 18, 2018.
  42. pump.io. "OStatus #8". GitHub. Retrieved August 18, 2018.
  43. Read.as. "Long-form ActivityPub-enabled reader". GitHub. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  44. "rebased repo". Git hub. Retrieved April 7, 2023.
  45. Robinson, Jason (May 19, 2018). "Implementing Zot".
  46. "streams". codeberg.org. Retrieved November 2, 2022.
  47. Perez, Sarah (November 21, 2022). "Tumblr to add support for ActivityPub, the social protocol powering Mastodon and other apps". TechCrunch. Retrieved November 21, 2022.
  48. Pfefferle, Matthias. "ActivityPub – WordPress plugin | WordPress.org". Retrieved November 28, 2022.
  49. wordpress.org. "Plugins categorized as diaspora | WordPress.org". Retrieved November 28, 2022.
  50. Pfefferle, Matthias. "OStatus – WordPress plugin | WordPress.org". Retrieved November 28, 2022.
  51. "Instance monitoring sites · Wiki · Feneas / Fediverse Party". git.feneas.org.
  52. "The Federation - a statistics hub". the-federation.info. Retrieved November 2, 2022.

Further reading
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