On 2008-05-18 15:49:33, the father of the #Fediverse and creator of #ActivityPub, Evan Prodromou, sent the first ever message in what was later called the “Fediverse” social network (not Mastodon® social network).

  • The first software was called Laconica.
  • The first instance was Identica.
  • The first prototol was OpenMicroBlogging.
  • The first label/name was Identiverse social network.

Here is the archived post: This is my first post.

The network never went down. From the first protocol, OpenMicroBlogging, it switched to the protocol OStatus (also by Evan), then to ActivityPub as most know it today. It’s exactly the same social network since 2008!

Happy 17th Year Anniversary Fediverse network!

#FediverseDay #FediverseMonth #MayIsFediverseMonth

  • Arthur Besse@lemmy.mlEnglish
    8·
    11 hours ago

    The network never went down.

    You say that but, everything I ever posted on identica (and also on Evan’s later OStatus site Status.Net, which i was a paying customer of) went 404 just a few years later. 😢

    When StatusNet shut down I was offered a MySQL dump, which is better than nothing for personal archival but not actually useful for setting up a new instance due to OStatus having DNS-based identity and lacking any concept for migrating to a new domain.

    https://identi.ca/evan/note/6EZ4Jzp5RQaUsx5QzJtL4A notes that Evan’s own first post is “still visible on Identi.ca today, although the URL format changed a few years ago, and the redirect plugin stopped working a few years after that.” … but for whatever reason he decided that most accounts (those inactive over a year, iiuc, which I was because I had moved to using StatusNet instead of identica) weren’t worthy of migrating to his new pump.io architecture at all.

    Here is some reporting about it from 2013: https://lwn.net/Articles/544347/

    As an added bonus, to the extent that I can find some of my posts on archive.org, links in them were all automatically replaced (it was the style at the time) with redirects via Evan’s URL shortening service ur1.ca which is also now long-dead.

    screenshot of Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) in the 1982 film Blade Runner, during his "Tears in rain" monologue. (no text)

    imo the deletion of most of the content in the proto-fediverse (PubSubHubbubiverse? 😂) was an enormous loss; I and many other people had years of great discussions on these sites which I wish we could revisit today.

    🪦

    The fact that ActivityPub now is still a thing where people must (be a sysadmin or) pick someone else’s domain to marry their online identity to is even more sad. ActivityPub desperately needs to become content addressable and decouple identity from other responsibilities. This experiment (which i learned of via this post) from six years ago seemed like a huge step in the right direction, but I don’t know if anyone is really working on solving these problems currently. 😢

    • Yohan Yukiya Sese Cuneta 사요한@piefed.socialEnglish
      31·
      12 hours ago

      Good thing I checked via piefed.social, your comment isn’t showing in fedia.io.

      Anyway …

      “The network never went down” because plenty of instances were already around. One such, during the OpenMicroBlogging and OStatus protocol days was “The TWiT Army Canteen” (aside: it was the first non-flagship instance that grew big and fast).

      Instances (flagship or otherwise) going offline is not the same as the network shutting down. As long as there are instances federating, the network is online. Even during the protocol transition periods, everyone implemented dual protocols. Once everyone transitioned to the new protocol, it was only then software devs removed the old protocol. So, still the same network since 2008.

      For example, I and many others were running our own Friendika/Friendica instances when Identica was migrated to PumpIO, and StatusNet’s paid hosted service was discontinued. There were also other self-hosted StatusNet instances. The network remained online despite the flagship StatusNet/Laconica instance disconnected from OStatus and moved to PumpIO.

      And out of it came the merged project GNU Social which existing StatusNet instances upgraded to. Then there was also Socialhome software, connected to both OStatus and diaspora*. Of course, Hubzilla too, and way much later, Mastodon®.

      Even without the original, that same network from 2008 remained online, and today is powered by ActivityPub protocol.

      I’m not dismissing the issues you’ve raised. Those are valid and surely, now that the network is 17 years already, they should be addressed. It could be a good write-up for someone and issue a call-to-action to everyone involved to bring the network to the next level. Otherwise, the network will become stagnant, and might die slowly.

      I think, any writer or journalist reading this thread should get inspired by what you shared. It will make their article different and more relevant than simply saying “happy 17th year anniversary”.

  • rigatti@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    20 hours ago

    It’s too bad it didn’t take off in the early days of social media. I wonder how the world would look today if that were the case.

    • youronlyone@fedia.ioOP
      21·
      20 hours ago

      Yeah.

      Although there were already discussions about it as early as 2005 (and earlier), Loic and company had been hosting a Web3 conference in France (“Le Web3”) for a few years back then. (The real Web3, not the crypto-Web3. < this is why many, if not most, Fediverse devs don’t like crypto, the crypto enthusiasts stole “Web3”)

      The discussions revolved around: #LinkedData #SemanticWeb #SocialWeb and Federation. It was how Web2 was actually envisioned by Tim, father of WWW, to be a federated social network but big corps took over and Web2 became closed social networks.

      Lastly, the first approaches were through tech that existing networks were encouraged to implement. For example, few people remember the “Open Social” set of technologies. The SNS platforms who applied Open Social were Hi5 and Google+ to mention two.

      In addition, before the #Bluesky “Open Social”—to promote #ATproto —there already was an #OpenSocial. Before the current Social Web came to be, the label was already being used in the early 2000s for similar purposes but larger and more inclusive.

      (Note: trying to remember things from back then)

      UPDATE from @[email protected]

      Although there were already discussions about it as early as 2005 (and earlier), Loic and company had been hosting a Web3 conference in France (“Le Web3”) for a few years back then. (The real Web3, not the crypto-Web3. < this is why many, if not most, Fediverse devs don’t like crypto, the crypto enthusiasts stole “Web3”)

      I think you’ve retconned a little bit here. LeWeb3 was named as a sequel to the previous conference which was called LeBlogs2. Remember, at that time Web 2.0 hadn’t really taken off yet - browsers had only just implemented the XMLHTTPRequest API - so it wouldn’t have made sense to already be talking about Web 3.0.

      Here is an original document containing some history of LeWeb3: https://web.archive.org/web/20070704054929/http://www.loiclemeur.com/LeWeb3executivesummaryv1.pdf

      • drspod@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        13 hours ago

        Although there were already discussions about it as early as 2005 (and earlier), Loic and company had been hosting a Web3 conference in France (“Le Web3”) for a few years back then. (The real Web3, not the crypto-Web3. < this is why many, if not most, Fediverse devs don’t like crypto, the crypto enthusiasts stole “Web3”)

        I think you’ve retconned a little bit here. LeWeb3 was named as a sequel to the previous conference which was called LeBlogs2. Remember, at that time Web 2.0 hadn’t really taken off yet - browsers had only just implemented the XMLHTTPRequest API - so it wouldn’t have made sense to already be talking about Web 3.0.

        Here is an original document containing some history of LeWeb3: https://web.archive.org/web/20070704054929/http://www.loiclemeur.com/LeWeb3executivesummaryv1.pdf

  • Psythik@lemm.eeEnglish
    9·
    20 hours ago

    Seventeen years!? God dayum!

    And here I thought the Fediverse was 6-7 years old tops. Wild that the concept is just now starting to gain traction.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      18 hours ago

      I only heard of it a year ago.

      I still hate the name “fediverse”. I love the concept, hate the name.

      • nasi_goreng@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        15 hours ago

        It’s okay to create your own name :) Some people refer the place as social web, some others create original name in their own language.

  • ThorrJo@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    4·
    18 hours ago

    Thanks for calling out that it’s not The Mastodon Network™, no matter how much Gargron wishes ot were so.