osada for social networking, hubzilla for the rest (?)

west bengal, india (Map), Sat, 24 Nov 2018 04:01:58 -0500

!Hubzilla Support Forum

getting to know a bit more about the #ZOTiverse i'm thinking to set up an #OSADA hub for social networking, the little of it that i engage in, and keep the #hubzilla hub i already have for things like forums, webpages, and whatever else may come to mind.

as i understand from @Mike Macgirvin's infrequent hints, both should be able to connect to #diaspora eventually, with the drawback that #NomadicIdentity can't be used then. means i'll run HZ without diaspora app but OSADA with it enabled. and the two of them will be able to connect to each other, right?

my question: is OSADA already useable, in a sort-of working state, or should i wait a while setting it up? (temporary hangups while switching to a new version won't bother me much.)

show all 65 comments

Isaac Ji Kuo

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 04:43:25 -0500

Right now, the number of active users on Osada is less than 100. That makes it pretty measly even compared to Hubzilla and Friendica (which have both passed 1000 with the G+ mass migration bump).

If you already have a bunch of contacts on Mastodon, then that's not a problem. But I have found Mastodon's culture to be confusing and I haven't gotten any traction there at all (I don't use Twitter, so that doesn't help me understand Mastodon).

I feel like the best way to interact with Mastodon is to simply get an actual Mastodon account - or several - on pod(s) that have communities you're interested in. Otherwise, there's no discovery in either direction - no one notices you and you can't find interesting potential followees either. And that's when you're on Mastodon itself. If you're on a federated platform like Friendica or Hubzilla? Forget about it!

In contrast, on the diaspora side I am able to find interesting followees by hashtag following and vice versa. The pluspora pod alone is big enough (in terms of active user base) to have reached a "critical mass".

I don't know what the state of Osada is, but looking at screenshots and such, it looks...very much like Hubzilla to me. I just don't see why an ordinary user would switch to it from Hubzilla.

phani (Hubzilla)

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 04:59:12 -0500

re. mastodon, it's the same with me. i never used twitter, only have an account to be able to follow a link once in a while. i don't see the point in having a messaging service that limits post length. most posts are short anyway.

the reason to think about OSADA is that it's meant to be a social networking thing, while for hubzilla it's just one of the features. social netw. isn't very important for me, but as you said, most contacts i find on D*, to which OSADA is or will be able to connect.

if iuse that for social stuff i can remove the diaspora app from hubzilla and use nomadic identity and all the other stuff i'm in the process of exploring.

Isaac Ji Kuo

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 05:17:35 -0500

I'd take advantage of Hubzilla's ability to have multiple channels per account. That's one big advantage of Hubzilla over Friendica. So, you have your social networking channel that you ONLY actively use from one pod, and you have diaspora activated on.

Then you can have other channels for experimenting, and do not activate diaspora or ActivityPub add-ons (ActivityPub, like diaspora, refers to your channel specific to a pod). These add-ons are activated and configured independently for each channel.

The only really annoying thing about multiple channels is that switching from one channel to another switches you across all browser tabs. This makes sense with how things work (you can make posts/comments while browsing another Hubzilla pod), but I'd rather be able to have my different channels in different tabs. To get around this problem, I have Chrome in multiple windows - my personal Google account, and my work Google account. That way, I can have one channel active in one window; another channel active in my work window.

(With Friendica, you only have one "channel" per account. The main problem with this is that you have to log out and log in as a different Friendica account if you want to switch from your normal personal account and a forum account, and vice versa. This is annoying compared to the Hubzilla method of simply switching your channel with a couple clicks.)

phani (Hubzilla)

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 05:23:20 -0500

yes, i know that's possible, activate D* only on one or the other channel, but i want to see what OSADA is all about too. re. different channels, i just use different browsers.

Tanja

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 05:33:13 -0500

Not directly related to your original post, but related to what came up in the comments: There's a great addon for Firefox, Mozilla's Multi-Account Containers. It lets you use the same browser window with so-called containers which store cookies independently from each other, so you can log in to the same websites with different accounts without having to switch browser windows.

phani (Hubzilla)

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 05:37:59 -0500

thanks, that's good to know. only that FF is the one of my browsers i like least

mainly i use vivaldi, and if i need another one chromium. if that's not enough FF, but rarely.

hEARt PhoniX

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 06:29:36 -0500 last edited: Sat, 24 Nov 2018 06:39:36 -0500

Zap and Osada are Hubzilla forks and the basis for @Mike Macgirvin to develop Zot6. Zot is the communication protocol developed by him that features all those things that make Hubzilla (Zap, Osada) great. The fork evolved because he wanted to react to criticism that HZ was too complicated and he used it as a clean start for Zot6 development.
Opposed to Hubzilla for example you decide during installation whether you want to use Zap or Osada, Hubzilla combines both capabilities, it's just different settings. But for example because when you use a channel with the privacy role "federation" you have got connection to other networks but nomadic ID does not work as expected, but it's all Hubzilla anyway - this is a usability issue we still need to find ways in Hubzilla to make clearer. This is being thought about, but there is no real solution right now.
As Mike is right now porting Zap6 to Hubzilla it will be able to communicate.
I find this a bit difficult to explain, so everybody please do clarify and correct me if required.

Mike Macgirvin wrote the following post Sat, 03 Nov 2018 17:24:37 -0400

Zap and Osada do one thing (social networking) and do it well.

Use Osada if you want a really good ActivityPub server, and use Zap if you want or need nomadic identity and much stronger privacy than the fediverse can offer.

Select one or the other. You can't have it all. That actually doesn't work - and there isn't any way to make it work.

Zap will always be the smaller network, because people will always give up their privacy to follow the herd and be where their friends are.

Use Hubzilla if you actually know what a 'platform' is and want to build something great (decentralised communities and cities with shoppes and businesses that all respect your freedom) rather than than just waste your life in idle chit-chat.

Mike Macgirvin wrote the following post Sat, 03 Nov 2018 18:02:53 -0400

Oh and lest we forget, Osada is also a Zot6 server. So even if you choose your friends over privacy and server reliability, you can still communicate with those people who made better life decisions.

Mike Macgirvin

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 06:31:21 -0500

Right now, the number of active users on Osada is less than 100.

Laughs... So what? Welcome to the fediverse. Size does not matter.

Anyway whether or not Diaspora federates with ActivityPub is a matter for the Diaspora community to decide. It's not my problem.

phani (Hubzilla)

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 06:46:13 -0500

As Mike is right now porting Zap6 to Hubzilla it will be able to communicate.
I find this a bit difficult to explain, so everybody please do clarify and correct me if required.

that's how i understood it and the reason i want to try both. no way to really understand what OSADA is short of using it. my main question was if OSADA already makes sense in a sort-of production environment at this time.

J P Sousa Paula

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 06:53:22 -0500

I'm having an hard time understanding Osada. "Share this" post "repeats" the post to I don't know where. Not to my Home/Wall. Reaching out non-Osada users is another challenge.
Anyway, I'm already too used to Hubzilla to use the "mini-Hubzilla".

I can see Diaspora users' Likes in Hubzilla posts from Osada as "unknown" users.

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 07:24:40 -0500

I would say YES to that, the wiki is there etc.

phani (Hubzilla)

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 08:22:33 -0500

that's probably an answer to my question: evolving, revolving, getting into some shape. best is to just try it, without expecting it to be ready. thanks for the first answer to my question, @J P Sousa Paula.

Giacomino

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 08:27:23 -0500

osada will federate with diaspora only if diaspora will start to use activitypub, which it means in 6 months or maybe, more likely in 6 years? :) #osada_does_not_have_diaspora_protocol

phani (Hubzilla)

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 08:30:13 -0500 last edited: Sat, 24 Nov 2018 08:32:04 -0500

i've seen other statements re. this, but i'm not sure which supersede which. just gonna try it and wait; no harm done.

edit: and not right now because i don't have the time. but soon, and i'll use this thread to answer my own question when that happens.

J P Sousa Paula

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 08:36:04 -0500

@phani (Hubzilla)
I moved a Osada channel to Hubzilla with no problems so far. So you might just just clone a Hubzilla channel to Osada.

Giacomino

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 08:43:24 -0500

probably, just for social networks, the best thing is zap, which continues to have nomadic identities, but if you look for the people, in the sense of having many people to read and comment, then no...
But I personally think that even in diaspora or mastodon in the end I do not have much to read and comment, because, although there are many more people than the zot-universe, then I do not meet my old friends or relatives etc ... (which currently I reach partly but only partially using telegram in the phone and in the computer browser). In essence what I find to read in the zot universe is already a lot, because having already 20 or 30 people who write and comment is no a small thing, this occupies, and sometimes even a lot, my time...but I know that there are persons that like to have 200 or more contacts ;) (but is not my cup of tea)

Oliver

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 08:51:11 -0500

my question: is OSADA already useable

Depends on what "useable"means. IMHO: yes. Just try it. It's running smooth on a shared hosting server.

phani (Hubzilla)

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 08:58:18 -0500 last edited: Sat, 24 Nov 2018 09:01:38 -0500

@Giacomino having tons of contacts isn't my thing either. once the new car smell wears off i'll probably be much less interested in the social stuff. if i find a few people who write things that interest me, that will be plenty. and so far, i've found some on Hz. D* is too full of politics for my taste. my main interest is Hz, for other than small-talk. just want to know what's going on, what's available, and how it works.

@Oliver that's exactly what i'm going to do, once i'm done with some stuff i have to finish first. i have the extra space & resources on my VPS so this won't be a problem at all.

M. Dent

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 09:34:01 -0500

There have been some discussions about this in a few corners, but I'm glad that others are thinking about these things! I think it will be easier to "see" how things fit together once Hubzilla has Zot6 support, but it doesn't hurt to start considering them now.

As I personally see it, Hubzilla will be the "workhorse" for groups and organizations. It's very extensible and I think it will start to blossom as a platform on which to build all kinds of cool things once the social media functions are more and more considered the job of Osada and Zap. As I see the history of the project, Social Media was really one of MANY "use cases" for the message passing capabilities and inherent architecture of the platform. It just happens to be (nearly) the only one people consider or think about at this point. To pigeonhole Hubzilla as a "social media" platform is a HUGE mistake.

One way I think about it is to think about how Wordpress with all of the different plugins and extensions can do so many different things (take a look at the plugins for Wordpress - it can seemingly do anything!). But the architecture of Wordpress has some major problems. It started as a "blogging platform" and will always have certain limitations because that is what it was designed to do. The architecture of Hubzilla, on the other hand, seems to have always been modular. In terms of building addons/apps and getting it to do new and exciting things, it is MUCH easier and far more efficient to work with Hubzilla. We already have a basic shopping cart system, with some work, the web page functions could be made to sizzle, and the "articles" function is perfect for "blogs". But thinking beyond that, there are a million things that CAN be done because Hubzilla is designed to add functionality - whereas Wordpress will always be a blogging platform with 'bolted on' features.

So in terms of "the future," ... I think OSADA/ZAP will be the "end user" portals to "the Grid" - provide social networking, acitivity feeds, etc. - mostly for individuals. Most users will have their identity through Osada/Zap and then be able to cross-authenticate and do stuff on Hubzilla hubs with identity awareness (single-signon) and access/privacy controls. Hubzilla will be the platform where stuff actually gets done.

If we think of it as a city - Osada/Zap will be the residential areas, and Hubzilla will occupy the business district. Zot6 is the roadway that connects them all.

M. Dent

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 09:51:35 -0500

Right now, the number of active users on Osada is less than 100.

That's actually a very misleading statement. Osada connects to both Zot6 and ActivityPub. Yes, the software itself currently has a very small user base, but the networks that Osada connects to has literally millions of users. In terms of "reach" - Osada reaches those 100 users PLUS the 1.6 million users of Mastodon, the 8200 users of Peertube, and a couple thousand others connected to other ActivityPub enabled projects. It isn't about "number of users of your software package" in this space, it's about reach. Does Osada do what YOU need it to do? Then, it's a great package!

The fact is that Osada reaches places that other networks can't - and once Hubzilla is upgraded to Zot6, Osada will allow you to still communicate with ActivityPub services while giving you access to even more things that ActivityPub interfaces (Mastodon, Peertube, etc) will never be able to.

Also, the-federation.info does not list all active nodes. My own (public) Osada instance https://osada.usezot.net knows about 169 different zap6 identities (using either Osada or Zap). Considering that the software only publicly debuted 5 weeks ago, I'd say that isn't too shabby!

Isaac Ji Kuo

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 14:05:52 -0500

No but really. The fact that Osada can connect with Mastodon is useless without discovery. Mastodon users never see me here on Hubzilla and vice versa. The "reach" is illusory. The only people who ever randomly discover my Hubzilla channel are other Hubzilla users. And it just isn't as good as it is on diaspora, where following tags is a thing. People who have similar interests find me via hashtags there - and vice versa.

Before the diaspora add-on broke, I was also getting new followers/followees on diaspora - but only because I also have a diaspora account and used it to find interesting followees and to point people to my Hubzilla channel.

You guys may look down upon my usage of social media as lowly socializing but ... that's what I want out of it. Diaspora is good at it. Mastodon, surprisingly, is not good at it. So far as I can tell, Mastodon's success is mainly due to its ability to migrate users from Twitter.

phani (Hubzilla)

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 14:31:07 -0500

You guys may look down upon my usage of social media as lowly socializing...

nonsense, at least as far as i'm concerned. your use case is different from mine, but i don't see how one would be higher or lower than the other. from what i understand you are trying to do, Hz may not be the best tool. i'd postpone any final decision until the whole zotiverse went through it's next major change and then reassess. things will change and i'm not sure exactly how.

Giacomino

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 14:37:13 -0500

curious because, apart from the few that I'm looking for, every time I create a new channel in hubzilla, is always the diaspora people to ask for friendship with me, and people that I do not know

M. Dent

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 14:46:47 -0500

@Isaac Ji Kuo - The great thing about Open Source is that you are free to "use what works for you." It sounds like you have specific expectations that have been formed by use of certain packages. If that's what you want/need, that's great! Use the package that does what you want/need it to do!

As for your specific concerns:

1) DISCOVERY : Hyperdrive in Osada deals with much of the "I don't get stuff from strangers showing up in my stream and it's hard to find people to follow and interact with" issue. It's actually too good in some instances and many people are wanting tools to slow down the "firehose" (which already exist in Osada, though they may need a bit of tweaking). So it isn't as if the Zotiverse is in lack of an answer to your concern. Hubzilla doesn't have Hyperdrive - I have no idea whether it is on the development map as I'm not working on that - but Osada does, and Osada will soon communicate with Hubzilla, so there may be no real need to do that in Hubzilla...

2) As kind of pointed out by this thread, Hubzilla itself is not specifically a social media platform (it does it, and IMHO, does it well!). Social media was ONE use case for the messaging capabilities, but at its heart, Hubzilla is MUCH more than social media streams. The fact that for most of its life it has been "pigeonholed" into that role as if Hubzilla=Social Media is a tragic disservice to the breadth of the platform. One that Osada (and Zap) may fortunately be able to help alleviate - and then let the various protocols and packages for "social media" get sorted out on a more level playing field.

All that said, different protocols have different strengths - as do different software packages that use those protocols. The fact that Hubzilla users were able to fairly easily communicate with people on so many networks is a testimony to the strength of the Zot protocol itself and the ingenuity of it's creator. To be sure, D*, as well as others have their strengths. Hopefully some of them will cross-pollinate over time into "best of breed." But until then, use what works best for your use case.

hEARt PhoniX

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 14:47:59 -0500 last edited: Sat, 24 Nov 2018 15:01:59 -0500

You guys may look down upon my usage of social media as lowly socializing...

No. The only thing might be that there had been a communication problem regarding Hubzilla. We had difficulties communicating what it is, that it can do way more than social networking. There was a bit frustration that people only saw that aspect.
This in fact played a part in the decision to fork Friendica way back then, and now to create Osada/Zap.

Isaac Ji Kuo

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 15:29:01 -0500

FWIW, the diaspora add-on is broken on hub.toot.cat, so my usage of Hubzilla is now basically zero. If I can't communicate with my followers/followees, it's useless to me.

Fundamentally, diaspora works best for me right now. Unless diaspora can be fixed on hub.toot.cat readily, I need to figure out an alternative. Right now, I'm thinking the solution may be for me to hack together a crude post/comment "echo" bot that crossposts my posts and all comments to my posts between diaspora and Mastodon. That covers 99% of the Fediverse/Federation space, and I can also choose to make it echo stuff with tumblr or other closed garden sites if I choose later.

My main frustration with simply multi-posting stuff to multiple sites is that the comment threads become silo'd from each other. But if I hack together a python script to auto-echo comments from one site to another (quoting them), then all of my followers can essentially participate in the same comment thread.

But as near as I can tell, Mastodon doesn't have proper comment threads in the first place, and that may be the reason ActivityPub's comment propagation is so broken. (My expectation is for a comment thread underneath a post to be visible to and propagated to everyone who can see the original post. But ActivityPub seems to not work that way.)

Mario Vavti

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 16:02:37 -0500

@Isaac Ji Kuo if your hub recently upgraded to version 3.8+ you might need to install the diaspora protocol app

❦ CRIME LICH ❦

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 16:21:33 -0500

hub.toot.cat recently updated, yeah.

@Isaac Ji Kuo you can find the diaspora and activity pub protocols in your available apps. if, once installed, it still doesn’t work, contact your admin – there are settings they’ll need to turn on.

Mike Macgirvin

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 16:47:18 -0500

the diaspora add-on is broken on hub.toot.cat

This is the first I've heard. Anybody else having any issues with d* on hz 3.8.4?

That site just upgraded from 3.6 (several days ago). You might check to see if there is a Diaspora Protocol app in the app store (apps/available) and install it. Otherwise, contact your site administrator @Woozle Hypertwin. We provided notifications about this change in the 3.8 release announcement but this was some time ago now and the recent upgrade may have happened without much communication to the site members.

Anyway these rock throwing threads are just a waste of everybody's time, including your own. Use whatever software you want. If you don't like a software package, either fix it or use something else.

Osada has a critical purpose in the larger scheme of things; but you're somewhat new to the fediverse and particularly to this family of software projects and there's way too much history to condense.

My expectation is for a comment thread underneath a post to be visible to and propagated to everyone who can see the original post. But ActivityPub seems to not work that way

That's entirely correct. A lot of effort has been expended in Osada to resolve or at least smooth over the different delivery models. ActivityPub supports both the relay model (Friendica, Diaspora, Hubzilla) as well as the OStatus "free for all" model. As it turns out there are issues using both together. Some conversations or sub-threads can "go rogue". It's something we're aware of and working with lots of people across a number of fediverse projects to resolve. Osada presents conversations (not tweets or toots) and will go out and pull in different pieces of a thread to make it as complete as possible. We've made major improvements just in the last week and I'm working with Friendica to make conversations work smoothly across the "conversational" projects while still being compatible with the "Twitter-style" projects and their unique way of doing things.

You're welcome to help.

Isaac Ji Kuo

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 18:10:37 -0500

According to the admin settings, both diaspora and ActivityPub add-ons are set to be available to users, but none of the users (including the admin's own channel) see them as available. Nevertheless, ActivityPub seems to be functional.

@Woozle Hypertwin knows this is a problem, but she hasn't figured out how to fix it yet.

Isaac Ji Kuo

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 18:43:35 -0500

As for what I can contribute - there's no diaspora client API, so I think that web scraping and bot posting/commenting may be the best practical way to connect up with both the diaspora and Mastodon sides (Mastodon has a client API, so on that side my "echobot" would not need to use web scraping on that side).

It's an ugly hack, but it may be adequate and would be relatively easy to maintain. I wouldn't have to try and convince other developers and pod admins to make a big switch in order to get it to work.

Obviously diaspora protocol support is not a priority, and the diaspora developers seem to have zero interest in ActivityPub so long as comment propagation is inherently broken in the specification. I've tried to promote the idea of a Mastodon optimized ActivityPub capability, but no go...they just aren't interested.

And of course, closed garden social media sites have zero interest in supporting any federating pod-to-pod protocol. This web scraping/posting/commenting bot could be a way to bridge things to other sites also. Meh.

Mike Macgirvin

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 02:32:15 -0500

So I created a test account on hub.toot.cat, installed the Diaspora Protocol app, connected to a test account on a Diaspora server and sent messages and comments back and forth (both ways). All were received successfully on both sides. Don't know what more I can tell you.

Isaac Ji Kuo

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 04:01:10 -0500

Ah, that's what me and @Woozle Hypertwin have been missing! The earlier version she first installed must have installed many apps by default. I searched around and found the "Add apps" option in the top right menu (not the Settings area). There were a whole lot of apps that were not installed on my channel, which definitely were installed and activated by default when I created a couple channels. For example, the "Notes" was definitely installed before, but it was not installed after the upgrade.

They did not appear in the Settings for Add-ons, but I eventually figured out that I had to go to another place to make the Apps for ActivityPub and diaspora to show up on the "Apps bar" in the upper right.

So, before it was an "Add-on", but now it's an "App". And even after adding an App, it is not obviously visible that it's added until going to this other place to make it visible in the App menu.

I need to get this straight in order to update my advice to new Hubzilla users. I've been telling them to go to the Settings Menu accessible in the upper left, and going to the "Add-on" settings. I had determined precise instructions for how to do it in the earlier version, but obviously things have been changed up a lot so I've been giving what's now the wrong advice.

phani (Hubzilla)

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 04:18:02 -0500

that changed with the upgrade to 3.8.x i think and i always assumed you had that "app" installed this way.

i think one of the reasons for apps not automatically being 'installed' is, or if it's not a reason it's certainly a very good coincidence, that you can still create a backup of your channel, even if it does federate with diaspora. activating diaspora on a cloned channel would shoot the whole thing immediately if diaspora app were activated on both, the channel and it's clone.

as it is i could clone my channel for backup purpose but have diaspora activated on the original only.

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 05:07:42 -0500

Basics - HOWTO Global Decentralized Authentication, Authorization and Audit
Portable NomadicID > Hub [0-9...] > Account [0-9...] > Channel [0-9...] > Profile [0-9...] > Privacy group [0-9...] > Permission [0-9...] etc, etc.

What this is trying to say - a bit inaccurately - is that you are globally represented by a portable nomadic ID, and you can have this backed up on a thumb drive or installed on one or more hubs as a channel. If you have more than one hub for your channel it is referred to as a cloned channel, a copy, and since you are you, syncing will be done between your clones.

Channels are the primary way for you to organize your publishing and your audience, e.g The Social Channel for your friends, The Cooking Channel for people who like to create food, The Norwegian History of Green Stamps Channel for ... I have no idea, but you get the idea. The context you want to provide content for is not the same at all times and for all your connections, an extra channel - a topic channel - makes sense.

Core Hubzilla comes with a number publishing tools called Apps that may be of use in your channel, but which ones you need will vary by channel. You install those you need into that channel, provided your hub administrator has turned them on. A cooking channel will probably need recipes, so web pages, wiki or articles make sense. Discussing weird green stamps may be more of a forum or private chat - please make it private, please, please.

Sometimes, core Hubzilla is not enough, you need addons. These must first be installed to the hub by your hub administrator and you will find them as available apps you can add to your channel.

If think about clones for a second, you realize addons may not be available at all your locations.

Joltrast

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 08:32:20 -0500 from Friendica

I wonder if something similar exists for Chrome. That would be awesome!

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 11:56:09 -0500

@joltrast - I do not understand what you are trying to say about Chrome here, please elaborate.

❦ CRIME LICH ❦

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 20:24:24 -0500

@Isaac Ji Kuo i don't include the activitypub or diaspora apps in my app menu – there's no point, they don't show me streams, just options (an even then, only in diaspora's case) that i don't need to change once set. there is some indication they've installed in that they show up in your installed apps.

Joltrast

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 21:01:42 -0500

!Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum) there are comments missing in this thread. I was replying on Friendica to someone regarding Firefox/Mozilla's Multi-Account Containers.

Joltrast

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 21:04:27 -0500 from Friendica

@Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum) there are comments missing in this thread. I was replying on Friendica to someone regarding Firefox/Mozilla's Multi-Account Containers

phani (Hubzilla)

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 22:25:17 -0500

i finally did spin up an osada instance and find it pretty similar to hubzilla, without the fancy bits like forums and webpages. it talks to friendica and mastodon apparently which i couldn't try since i have no real contacts in that part of the fediverse. (connecting to @Joltrast gives me channel discovery failed on osada.) i'm also not able to talk to my alter-ego here on hubzilla (via ActivityPub), but these failures may be due to the fact that i pulled the dev branch from Git which isn't supposed to be stable at this time.

people who sound like they know what they're talking about over there told me that there's no intention to add the diaspora protocol to osada, which makes it unusable for what i thought i'd use it for. here's to hoping that hubzilla, even after switching to zot6, will still be able to talk to D*, some way or other...

Michael MD

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 23:30:07 -0500

maybe I missed something but...

what is osada?

phani (Hubzilla)

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 23:35:34 -0500

from the readme at the framagit repo:

ZAP/OSADA

This repository contains the working code for the Zap and Osada social network servers. These are two completely different projects with different features and capabilities. They share a common code repository for maintenance purposes. The type of server you wish to run is chosen during site installation.

Zap

Zap is a full featured social network application running under the Zot6 protocol. It provides enhanced privacy modes and identity/content mirroring across multiple servers ("nomadic identity"). It does not "federate" with non-nomadic servers, protocols, or projects.

Osada

Osada is a full featured social network application running under the ActivityPub protocol. It also communicates with and inter-operates with servers on the Zot6 network (such as Zap). Due to limitations in the ActivityPub protocol, Osada does not offer nomadic identity or enhanced privacy modes.

Antechinus

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 23:43:12 -0500

Zap and Osada are relatively new "Hubzilla-lite" implementations based on @Mike Macgirvin's latest revision of the Zot protocol. Zap retains Hubzilla's nomadic identity and rich permissions and access-control. Osada sacrifices those features for easier exchange with other federating services.

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 00:03:13 -0500

@Joltrast - ah, it was not missing here, that was @Tanja a bit further up.

Waitman Gobble

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 00:23:38 -0500

Sorry. I thought there was like a 5 second rule. I deleted right after the post

phani (Hubzilla)

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 00:27:04 -0500

don't know about any 5-sec-rule, but i deleted your pinguin post ~1 min ago; was still there. so what...nothing i do is really serious, so you're welcome to drop a few penguins or other critters if you feel like

Mike Macgirvin

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 00:35:57 -0500

This is all you need to know. Highlighted in places that have traditional been a source of confusion.

Zap is a  social network application running under the Zot6 protocol.

Osada is a social network application running under the ActivityPub protocol.

Hubzilla is a decentralised privacy platform running under the Zot protocol.
    - Zot6 upgrade is in progress
    - Basic communications with "fediverse" social network applications are provided by optional third party addons
    - These addons are incompatible with Hubzilla's privacy and identity infrastructure

phani (Hubzilla)

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 00:42:08 -0500

thanks for the clarification. you purposely left the number of zot(5/6) out in your hubzilla line. i guess if the optional 3rd party addon for the diaspora protocol will make it to zot6 remains to be seen. depends on where D* goes with their stuff in the meantime of course.

and if there is a working add-on for D* / zot6, shouldn't it be possible to add that to osada as well?

Mike Macgirvin

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 00:56:44 -0500

There is no Zot5.

Diaspora is "more or less" working with Zot6 in the Hubzilla dev branch today. There is still a lot more work to do.

and if there is a working add-on for D* / zot6, shouldn't it be possible to add that to osada as well?

Let's try this again..
Osada is a social network application running under the ActivityPub protocol.

Zot federates with other protocols. So does Zot6. ActivityPub does not federate with other other protocols. Neither does Diaspora. And that means we have a problem which only ActivityPub and/or Diaspora can fix. It is out of my hands.

phani (Hubzilla)

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 01:02:25 -0500

sorry, finally got it. in my mind Osada was also using Zot6, which you clearly said it wasn't. and zap, which does use zot6, isn't federating at all.

Mike Macgirvin

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 03:13:53 -0500

Osada has zot6 but it's primary interface is ActivityPub.

Let me tell you a playground story. Zoe, Alice and Diane are playing ball. Alice only plays with red balls. Diane only plays with blue balls. Zoe has white balls, but really doesn't care what colour balls she uses. She just wants to play and thinks the other two are spoilt little brats. Her balls are Italian white leather incidentally with Burmese silk stitching. But that doesn't matter if nobody wants anything to do with her.

Anyway Zoe has spray paint. So she can spray one of her special white balls red (destroying it in the process) and play with Alice. She can paint another one blue and play with Diane. But she can't throw one of Alice's balls to Diane. Diane only plays with blue balls and Alice only has red. If Zoe paints the blue ball red it turns purple and Alice won't touch it. If she paints a red ball blue it also turns purple and Diane won't touch it. And of course Diane and Alice can't ever play ball with each other because they refuse to play with any balls that aren't their colour.

That's the basic situation.

Joltrast

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 03:23:46 -0500

Subtle, but great analogy

phani (Hubzilla)

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 03:24:22 -0500

poor zoe ... and poor me. i thought i had finally understood what you were saying, and now you say something different again. i'll probably run another hub with hubzilla dev, see what happens, and if i find the time, start looking at the code in detail. not holding my breath though, i am quite busy with other stuff ATM.

Isaac Ji Kuo

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 03:52:31 -0500

The "play balls" analogy is why I'm going with my echobot kludge to echo comment threads between platforms.

My main goal is to simply mirror comment threads to my posts on Google+ (while it lasts), diaspora, and Mastodon. These platforms don't want to play ball with each other, but they don't have to if I use this dumb echobot kludge. My diaspora, G+, and Mastodon followers will be able to see each other's comments on their own respective platforms; they'll participate in the same shared commentary.

Yeah, it's a dumb kludge, but it's more realistic than forcing all of my followers to switch to the same platform, and it's more realistic than convincing the big popular platforms to "play ball" with each other. Meh...

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 04:15:05 -0500

@phani (Hubzilla) Perhaps these relationship graphs help?

(Zap/Hubzilla 4/...)-[:GOT_ZOT6]-(Osada)-[:GOT_ACTIVITYPUB]-(Mastodon/PeerTube/Pleroma/...)

(Zap/Hubzilla 4/Osada...)-[:GOT_ZOT6]-(Zap)

phani (Hubzilla)

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 04:29:37 -0500

yes, thank you. i think -- once again -- that i got this now. what remains to be seen if and how this will affect connection to diaspora, which i would like to maintain. for now i'll keep playing around with osada but probably won't use it in the end, and will try to understand better how hubzilla 4 / zot6 do their connecting business.

cb7f604332cf39

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 04:48:30 -0500

@Isaac Ji Kuo

My main goal is to simply mirror comment threads to my posts on Google+

I don't want to see my comments on G+. This harms my privacy. I don't want to play with the yellow balls.

cb7f604332cf39

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 04:55:12 -0500

Guess we need an additional layer. Every user should be able to decide on which networks he want to participate.
May be based on the activated protocols.
This info needs to be forwarded to other server and they have to respect the decisions of the users.
No, this isn't a feature request, cause it won't work over the different projects (they don't handle even remote auth).
It's just a wet dream of me.

Isaac Ji Kuo

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 05:41:40 -0500

@cb7f604332cf39 I've considered that and it would be an opt-in system where you can choose which social media sites to allow echo sharing to. As such, the mirroring isn't going to be perfect, but it's more important to give (de facto) users control over where their content is mirrored to.

Isaac Ji Kuo

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 06:34:51 -0500

I think I've figured out an elegant opt-in system, which gives the (de facto) users good opt-in control.

At the end of any comment, you can include a directive the echobot understands. Something like this:

Hi, this is just a test comment!
echoMe2: GooglePlus, diaspora, Mastodon

When the echobot sees this, it understands to alter your authorized echo sites to GooglePlus, diaspora, and Mastodon. Your comments will be echoed to those sites, but will NOT be echoed to any other sites (such as Facebook).

Of course, this control isn't 100% perfect. Due to the nature of Federation/Fediverse, you can't prevent a comment on Mastodon from being visible to other ActivityPub sites.

Anyway, this is getting way off topic. If you wish to discuss it more deeply, I have a post specifically about my "Echommentary" project here: #^https://hub.toot.cat/display/5fc1edb0d3890136c2f1005056264835

There's more discussion on it on GooglePlus and diaspora though...meh. It's these silo'd comment threads which I'm so frustrated by that I wish to solve...

Matze

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 07:18:06 -0500

@Isaac Ji Kuo @Tanja @phani (Hubzilla) @Joltrast

Thanks to @Tanja mentioning the Multi-Account-Containers-mozilla-plugin, I had an idea, how to log in to multiple channels simultaneously in my own browser, and it works.
I'm using #^Falkon (formerly Qupzilla). And you can login to different channels simultaneously by opening private windows (from the menu or ctrl+shift+p). When you go to the url of the hub, you can login no matter how often you were logged in in other private windows. It also works with Twitter.

KDE web browser

Matze

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 07:52:55 -0500

@Isaac Ji Kuo @Tanja @phani (Hubzilla) @Joltrast

Update:
It is true, that I can login in a private window, but I can't see the posts. So I take it back: It doesn't quite work (, yet).

Michael MD

Sat, 08 Dec 2018 23:42:33 -0500

maybe "private windows" don't do cookies ...
(logins by definition would need the site logged into to know its you/your account)

but generally not sure if "private windows" are REALLY private anyway (eg "search"/"malware" upstreams, etc) so not really sure if theres is much point bothering with so-called "private windows"

lost trust in the big browsers a few years ago .. still looking for a decent alternative

hEARt PhoniX

Sun, 09 Dec 2018 00:50:15 -0500

Well, I am using private tabs in Firefox and Chromium all the time because they are a way to check out how channel b be sees channel a, whether message sourcing works and all that.