[Freedombox-discuss] Diaspora

Sun Oct 16 10:30:41 UTC 2011

On 16 October 2011 11:41, Yosem Companys <companys at stanford.edu> wrote:
> This post may be of interest:  Diaspora* is not about killing Facebook or
> Google+. It's about reinventing the social
> web:http://joindiaspora.com/posts/433064
> Diaspora* is all about protecting the open web and fighting against walled
> gardens.  We're inspired by Eben
> Moglen http://nymag.com/news/features/establishments/68512/, so our goals
> are consistent with FreedomBox.  Another good piece is this one:
>  http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/the-making-of-diaspora
> Our funding goal is to raise as much as we can to keep
> the http://diasporafoundation.org/ going and sustain our development.   We
> raised $250K via Kickstarter last summer, which lasted us over a year.  If
> you want a tangible number, my personal goal would be to raise $1 million
> per year so we can support Diaspora* community spaces where our open-source
> developers can work face-to-face to greatly expand our development efforts.

Thanks for the links, again, interesting reading.

So your goal is to raise $1m and "reinvent" something similar to the
WWW, but more social.  However do you realize that the WWW was
designed to be social from day 1?

Already had several hundred million profiles, and billions of
companies products and services etc. linked in a cloud aka "linked
data".  Facebook interoperates with this cloud, does diaspora?

Facebook is criticized in your post for being analogous to AOL,
however, I can link from any page on the web, to a machine readable
version of a user profile on facebook, using Web Stanards.  Again I
know that David Recordon of Facebook took time out to  work with Tim
and Dan Brickley on this.  e.g.

curl -H 'Accept: text/turtle' http://graph.facebook.com/jesserweaver

Matt Lee and the GNU social folks sat with Tim Berners-Lee before they
started design, and he explained how to continue this work and
integrate smoothly.

The easiest thing in the world is to say you're going to use
standards, and then invent something bespoke.  I'm not the greatest
fan of Facebook, but people point fingers at them, but they have made
an effort to interoperate.  The impression I have to date is that
diaspora 'pods' primarily link to other diaspora pods, rather than
heterogeneous systems, is that correct?

Diaspora is obviously good at fund raising, and I wish you the best of
luck trying to raise the million dollars.  At a minimum, it's great
publicity for the concept.

However, making the WWW social has been on the agenda from day 1 and
has been an ongoing effort from an extended community, for over 2
decades.  Id encourage you to be as keen, to join with others working
towards the same goals, as you are to raise funds, or even create new
technology.

> Best,
> Yosem
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 12:15 AM, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On 16 October 2011 02:28, Yosem Companys <companys at stanford.edu> wrote:
>> > Hi All,
>> > My name is Yosem, and I'm a member of this list, though I generally
>> > don't
>> > say much.  I'm a PhD student at Stanford but also work running the
>> > Diaspora*
>> > Foundation.
>> > If you'd like invites, please let me know, and I'll be happy to send you
>> > one.  If you have any questions, please let me know too.  Happy to
>> > answer
>> > them.  We're very transparent, non-commercial, and community-run.  You
>> > won't
>> > get any BS from us.
>> > Since a lot of people still have questions about Diaspora*, we took a
>> > moment
>> > to address some of the things we have been hearing lately.  We hope
>> > you'll
>> > take a
>> >
>> > look: http://blog.diasporafoundation.org/2011/10/15/diaspora-not-vaporware-not-a-nigerian-prince.html
>> > Anyway, I'm at your disposal.  Ask away.
>>
>> Thanks for pointing this out, that was an interesting read.
>>
>> If I've understood your financial statement correctly, you're looking
>> to raise another $100, to keep going for the next year?
>>
>> My question is, does diaspora have plans to interoperate with other
>> (non diaspora) FOSS social system, on the Web?  If so, which ones?
>>
>> > Best,
>> > Yosem
>> >
>> >
>> > On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 1:09 PM, Weaver <weaver at riseup.net> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:41:14 +0200
>> >> Brandon Invergo <b.invergo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > No sooner did I write that defense of Diaspora than I read this
>> >> > article:
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > http://allthingsd.com/20111013/at-lunch-with-diaspora-the-non-profit-open-source-social-network-built-by-outsiders/
>> >> > In which they float the idea of charging people for running a pod. At
>> >> > the same time, a friend on Facebook who has been waiting for an
>> >> > invite to joindiaspora.com was talking about how he felt that they
>> >> > were soliciting invites in exchange for donations. I'm assuming he
>> >> > just got the same email as everyone else asking for donations but
>> >> > since they also sent it to the people waiting for invitations, it was
>> >> > difficult not to make that assumption.
>> >>
>> >> <snip>
>> >>
>> >> That's definitely happening.
>> >> I'm still waiting for an 'invitation' and got the email asking for $25
>> >> with the assurance that everybody donating wouldn't have to wait any
>> >> longer.
>> >> Young blokes beginning to see the uptake of a new project and eyeing
>> >> Zuckerburg potentials is how I see it.
>> >> If it carries on I might be declining the 'invitation' before I receive
>> >> it.
>> >> Regards,
>> >>
>> >> Weaver.
>> >> --
>> >> "In a world without walls and fences,
>> >> what need have we for Windows or Gates?"
>> >> -Anon.
>> >>
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