Evan S. Prodromou (born 14 October 1968) is a software developer and

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

advocate. He is a co-editor of

ActivityPub ActivityPub is a Communication protocol, protocol and open standard for Decentralised system, decentralized Social networking service, social networking. It provides a Client–server model, client-to-server (C2S) API for creating and modifying c ...

, the W3C standard for decentralized social networking used by platforms such as

Mastodon A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...

. His other major contributions have been

Wikitravel Wikitravel is a web-based collaborative travel guide based on the wiki format and owned by Internet Brands. It was most active from 2003 through 2012, when most of its editing community left and brought their contributions to the nonprofit Wik ...

(with Michele Ann Jenkins), Identi.ca, and

StatusNet GNU social (and its predecessor StatusNet) is a largely defunct free and open-source microblogging social networking service that implements the OStatus and ActivityPub standards for interoperability between installations. While offering similar f ...

, and Fuzzy.ai, an

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

service for developers.

Biography

Prodromou was born in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

, United States, and grew up in

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

and

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. He has lived in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, and

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

, and currently lives in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

. Prodromou graduated from

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 1990 (Physics, English), and worked for Microsoft and various Web development companies in the late 1990s. In 2003 he started

, and in 2007 founded Control Yourself, which developed the software for Identi.ca, a microblogging service. Control Yourself was renamed to Laconica, StatusNet in 2010, and finally to GNU social in 2012. In December 2012 Prodromou started a new company, E14N.com, to develop a new social media platform, Pump.io, a follow-up to StatusNet. Prodromou is an advocate of

Free and Open Source Software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...

and

free culture The free-culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify the creative works of others in the form of free content, otherwise known as open content. They encourage creators to create such content by using ...

. He has presented at software conferences, and is the chair of the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

consortium's (W3C) Federated Social Web Community Group. Evan is the son of Stav Prodromou, and is married to Michele Ann Jenkins. They have two children.

Projects

Evan Prodromou is working on or has worked on these projects: * https://www.openearth.org/ * fuzzy.ai * Breather (company) * Pump.io * E14N.com (formerly Control Yourself, Laconica, and

) * Identi.ca *

* Vinismo * kei.ki * certifi.ca * Heat.net

Publications

References

External links

Official website
archived 2016-08-18 * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Prodromou, Evan 1968 births Living people American computer programmers Free software programmers People from Cincinnati American people of Greek descent Wikipedia people