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by edhelas 3205 days ago
Decentralized social networks aren't working for now because they reinvent their own protocol each time which creates fragmentation and incompatibilities between the platforms.

I think that decentralized social network projects should relies on existing standards and help with their development. That's why I'm working on Movim (https://movim.eu/) for several years now, which is fully based on XMPP and is de facto compatible with many other clients and services out there.
2 comments
lazyjones 3205 days ago
> Decentralized social networks aren't working for now because they reinvent their own protocol each time

nope...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OStatus

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leoc 3205 days ago
> Decentralized social networks aren't working for now because they reinvent their own protocol each time which creates fragmentation and incompatibilities between the platforms.

Recall that all computing problems are solved by adding more abstraction ( ;) ) and not all problems yield to a direct attack with the current tools. Maybe the point of maximum leverage here is actually the problem that interoperation between different protocols is too difficult?

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edhelas 3205 days ago
The interoperability between the protocols is indeed difficult. But pushing a standard protocol is, I think, the best way to promote this compatibility.

Imagine if we didn't have a standard protocol for emails (SMTP/IMAP/POP) but instead several protocols built using JSON on top of HTTP. We would have to take most of our time to work on broken transport libraries and fix incompatibility issues between all those solutions. Hopefully we have a standard (even if it's not the best one) and we can "just" build on top using the many existing libraries and projects out there.

I think that such "social standard" should be build on Internet protocols (TCP/TLS/DNS/IP…) and not Web only (HTTP), even if it's "easier". Also instead of re-starting from scratch I prefer to improve something existing like XMPP that have flaws but is already an industry standard with a strong community, many libraries/clients and servers deployed all across the world.

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