[cyphar]

> (BTW this is what decentralisation people should understand: you need to build services using common protocols, not services which can be installed; mastodon is a bad example, activityfeeds or linked data are good ones)

Mastodon/GNU Social uses standardised protocols. ActivityFeeds is an attempt to unify the a different protocol as a W3 standard. With ActivityFeeds you also will need to install a service just like Mastodon. But the whole point is that you don't need to install Mastodon yourself, you can use one that's already hosted (similar to the early days of email -- these days you generally have to use hosted email).

The fact that the Mastodon craze still inherited the community from GNU Social is evidence that it is a well designed federated system.

[pmlnr]

> don't need to install Mastodon yourself

My point is that if I don't want Mastodon, I still want to be able to talk to Mastodon with something else.

If this is already sorted, that's good, and in that case, sorry for lagging a bit behind.

[cyphar]

Any GNU Social implementation (such as the one run by the FSF or anyone else) is compatible with Mastodon. They use the same protocol, and that's been the case from day 1 (Mastodon is just an implementation of that protocol). Mastodon is not really "new" at all, it's just a nicer UX than previous implementations.

For example, MediaGoblin has been planning on peering with GNU Social to allow you to share media as GNU Social statuses (and you could then share and comment on media directly rather than having to send a link to it).