So the GS developer is advocating to switch to pleroma.
@mmn why? I tried to contribute a modern patch several times. What will Stallman think?
@dansup wait, does GNU Social use MD5 or no hashing?
@octobyte statusnet does yeah, gnu/social replaced it with an insecure sha256.
@dansup ...but why
@dansup is bcrypt not free enough for them? Jfc
@octobyte No idea, I tried fixing it with argon2d or bcrypt password hashing.
well, the main reason why Pleroma isn't a GNU project is because the gnu.io initiative never got the support it needed from the GNU mothership. we believe in AGPL, software freedom and the overall principles of the gnu.io initiative, but if we have to build it ourselves, there's no point in being under the gnu.io umbrella: if we build it ourselves, the only "advantage" to being under the gnu.io umbrella is that others can come in and tell us what to do with the stuff we are building :)
it should also be noted that the GNU project also endorsed Mastodon as a possible replacement when Gargron took it AGPL.
so, I would like to believe that Stallman would be happy that there has been a movement to take back the social web in a way that propagates software freedom; the GNU project isn't the beginning or end of this movement. I also have the understanding that Stallman knows our reasons for this and accepts them.
finally, in my opinion, it's the movement that is important, not where it is located: if we are building our own organization to support the initiatives we are doing with Pleroma, then this is a logistical detail and is ultimately uninteresting and unimportant to the overall mission of propagating software freedom in this space
i mean, bluntly, the reason why projects became GNU projects was to leverage the support, social capital and infrastructure GNU could lend them
the GNU.io initiative was a good effort, I applaud them for trying to make moves in this space, but the FSF never made the commitments needed to really make traction here -- we should all be thanking @Gargron for jumpstarting the movement and getting it going again and anybody who disagrees with that analysis is frankly ignorant
Mastodon started the current wave, and while Pleroma was initiated at the same time, I mean, @lain is very obviously not a PR person :)
It is a shame that GNU social is in the state it is, but that's largely because FSF never gave the GNU.io initiative the support it needed -- it didn't understand the initiative, much like it didn't understand DotGNU and what the strategic value of these initiatives are
this is also why I find myself frustrated with the current state of the GNU project -- there have been so many opportunities lost in the battles that actually matter today -- to inaction and lack of support / funding / advocacy / recruitment
i do not believe anybody here proposed mastodon as a replacement :)
i just said that Gargron took the open social web movement that was starting to bounce back and dumped gasoline on it -- for whatever you want to say about Mastodon, it has grown the fediverse userbase considerably.
i hope so, it is why i am working on this stuff
in the end, all of us (gnu social, mastodon, pleroma, hubzilla, etc) are working toward the same goal of building this up even further, which is why i don't think ripping on mastodon is productive
yes, it is worth comparing and contrasting differences between each project obviously, and a little competition is also healthy too, but at the same time it is important to not create unnecessary division -- there are good strengths to every project in the fediverse and it's important that everyone can draw on everyone else's specific expertise
IRC was a place where the development mentality was fuck everyone else and IRC has basically gone to zero as a result
So, for example, you ask him why he does not merge your stuff.
The real question, now that you know the background, you should ask is: what's the point in bothering?
FSF has campaigns about how Windows is bad, but they don't have campaigns about how commercial social media is bad.
The whole point of the gnu.io initiative was that FSF would support it in the same way that they support the main GNU initiatives; that gnu.io would get some campaigns -- but it never happened -- instead, GNU social and LibreFM were developed with basically no attention given to them from the mothership.
In conclusion: sometimes being a responsible maintainer is knowing when to walk out. If there's no sign of upstream support for your efforts, and there's no way to even gain traction against the libre competition (Mastodon and Pleroma mostly), then what's the point?
It isn't a defeat when better libre software comes along and replaces legacy software.
@kaniini I've tried. He doesn't seem to care about GS anymore. He got mad after I deleted my merge requests after a month, and when they were restored he never did anything.
I meant that you asked him in this thread why he doesn't care.
My point is that there's no value in caring. Absolutely none.
The whole point of the GNU.io exercise was that FSF would back it in the same way they back their other initiatives -- that there would be messaging about why Twitter and LastFM should be boycotted.
It never happened: instead, the fediverse itself rose up and took the initiative instead with projects like Mastodon and Pleroma. And while we are figuring out how to work together and also coordinate messaging strategies, we are delivering more impact than GNU.io has ever delivered.
So, there is no motivation other than to walk out of GNU.io and let it stagnate.
@pybyte I have, she has merged some of my code.
@bob I tried, I created my own alternative from scratch. Way more performant.
@kaniini Well earlier a bunch of projects actually became #GNU projects because people thought the GNU ideas of Software Libre (that go way beyond FOSS) matter and are important... I do see critical issues however in adapting them to todays challenge and the (at best) half-baked support for GNUsocial seems to speak for itself. Then again, anyone remembers GNU/Hurd? ;)
@dansup @mmn @gargron @lain
@rick_777 Mastodon is much more of an accomplishment than quitter, a GS theme that did not solve the shortcomings of GS including the fact that GS was using md5 to "hash" passwords.
It was (and still is) a pretty buggy and slow UI, which is what led to Pleroma-FE (and Pleroma in general).
@kaniini thanks, good post
@kaniini I chose pleroma for my own instance (not this one) more or less arbitrarily knowing little about its philosophy. Not much figured it out yet under the hood but this thread makes me feel I did the right thing and can get fully behind it. Thank you. (I don’t work in tech and never got fully into the FSF because of its exclusive hair shirt bent - I didn’t feel it wanted to convert most people or wanted to learn to communicate with them.)
@marvin GNU/Social
although, I am curious to see where the GNU social developer has advocated switching to Pleroma... i looked around and didn't see anything?
@mmn I've added bcrypt/agron2d password hashing support, composer/psr4 support and active-orm and a REPL. You ignored them, I'm really sad that GNU doesn't have a more responsible maintainer.
https://git.gnu.io/dansup/gnu-social/branches/active