GNU social (and its predecessor StatusNet) is a largely defunct

free and open-source 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 ...

microblogging Microblogging is a form of blogging using short posts without titles known as microposts or status updates. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links", which may be the ...

social networking service A social networking service (SNS), or social networking site, is a type of online social media platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interest ...

that implements the

OStatus OStatus is an open standard for decentralized social networking, allowing users on one service to send and receive status updates with users from another. The standard describes how a suite of various standards, including Atom, Activity Strea ...

and

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 ...

standards for

interoperability Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader de ...

between installations. While offering similar functionality to social networks such as

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, GNU social seeks to provide the ability for open and federated communication between different microblogging communities, known as 'instances'. Both enterprises and individuals can install and control their own instances and user data.Bastien, Malcolm (2008-8-28
Why Laconica Means Big Things For Corporate Micro Blogging
. Retrieved 2009-1-3. At its peak in popularity, GNU social had been deployed on hundreds of interconnected instances, however has since fallen into disuse as competing software like

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 ...

and

Pleroma Pleroma (, literally "fullness") generally refers to the totality of divine powers. It is used in Christian theological contexts, as well as in Gnosticism. The term also appears in the Epistle to the Colossians, which is traditionally attributed ...

have taken its position as the dominant federated microblogging services. Later on in its lifespan, the project split into two separate

branches A branch, also called a ramus in botany, is a stem that grows off from another stem, or when structures like veins in leaves are divided into smaller veins. History and etymology In Old English, there are numerous words for branch, includi ...

, with "v2" being a continuation of the original codebase for maintenance of existing instances, with "v3" being a complete redesign of the project meant to integrate further ActivityPub support and modernization of the user experience and its technological back-end. As of August 15, 2022, there had been no new commits to the v2 branch, with the v3 branch also no longer being actively developed not long after by November 25, 2022, with the project essentially abandoned. Despite its modern obsolescence and dated design compared to modern platforms, GNU social and StatusNet is regarded to be the origin of the

Fediverse The Fediverse (commonly shortened to fedi) is a collection of social networking services that can communicate with each other (formally known as Federation (information technology), federation) using a common protocol. Users of different websites ...

network and has had a major influence on the design of more modern decentralized social networks that succeeded it.

History

While being the main project within its lineage, GNU social originally began as a

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to h ...

of StatusNet. The software was first developed for a service called identi.ca from Evan Prodromou, which offered free microblogging accounts to the public. The software quickly became one of the first popular examples of a decentralized social network, as identi.ca allowed any other server that was running the software to communicate with it, something which had not previously been attempted before in

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

at such a large scale. StatusNet-zh_CN

StatusNet

Originally, StatusNet (named Laconica at the time) was launched with a

communication protocol A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics (computer science), sem ...

designed specifically for the project called OpenMicroBlogging (OMB). With version 0.8.1, the name of the software was changed to StatusNet.StatusNet 0.8.1 (2009-8-28) , StatusNet Wiki Retrieved 2009-8-29. Version 0.9.0 was released soon after in March 3, 2010, with the developers implementing a newly designed protocol dubbed

, with support for OMB being dropped not long after. Compared to OpenMicroBlogging, OStatus could handle and federate more events and actions than the basic plaintext communication that OMB provided and was based on a variety of other web technologies, allowing for easier adoption of new implementations of the protocol for servers and clients compared to the fully custom architecture of OMB. With the StatusNet name change, the company developing both the software and OStatus as well as managing identi.ca rebranded from Control Yourself to StatusNet Inc. In August 2010, the company raised a new round of

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

funds to establish a hosting service under the status.net domain from sources such as First Mark Capital, BOLDstart Ventures, iNovia Capital and Montreal Start Up, raising over $2.3 million in funding up to that point. The hosting service allowed anyone to establish their own StatusNet instance without maintaining a server, similar to WordPress.com and other blogging platforms. New registrations on identi.ca along with the ability to create new status.net instances was disabled in December 2012, in preparation for a migration to pump.io that has since been named by users of StatusNet and OStatus as "the Pumpocalypse". pump.io was a brand new software package like StatusNet, but with a new protocol designed for general purpose activity streams outside of microblogging and ease-of-use for developers building on the technology, much like the transition from OMB to OStatus. The announcement was seen as unexpected among identi.ca users, who were concerned about the possibility of their statuses being deleted with the transition. At the same time, server administrators running third-party instances and their users who were left behind on StatusNet were also worried, as it was unclear at the time whether future development of the software would be picked up by a new maintainer. The transition for identi.ca users to pump.io was completed on 12 July 2013.

Previous names

The original name of StatusNet was Laconica, a reference to the

Laconic phrase A laconic phrase or laconism is a concision, concise or wikt:terse, terse statement, especially a wikt:blunt, blunt and wikt:elliptical, elliptical rejoinder. It is named after Laconia, the region of Greece including the city of Sparta, whose anci ...

; a particularly brief statement commonly attributed to the leaders of

Sparta Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...

(

Laconia Laconia or Lakonia (, , ) is a historical and Administrative regions of Greece, administrative region of Greece located on the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparti (municipality), Sparta. The word ...

being the Greek region containing Sparta). In microblogging, all messages are designed to be very short due to the traditional 140-character limit on message size, a limitation imported from

SMS Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, t ...

. Beginning with version 0.8.1, the name was changed to StatusNet. The developers said that the new name "simply reflects what our software does: send ''status'' updates into your social ''net''work."Laconica is now StatusNet , retrieved 2009-10-04

GNU social

GNU social originally began as a side project of GNU FM (Libre.fm) maintainer Matt Lee, with the goal of being able to federate messages between

Last.fm Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Utilizing a music recommender system known as "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm creates a detailed profile of each user's musical preferences by recording the details of the tracks they ...

and other instances of GNU FM using StatusNet plugins. Around the same time, a developer named Mikael Nordfeldth forked StatusNet with the intention of maintaining it as a personal project, dubbing it "Free Social". However, following identi.ca's transition to pump.io and its developers' sudden abandonment of StatusNet, the projects received more attention from server administrators and other users looking for an actively updated alternative. Shortly after LibrePlanet 2012, a plan was formed to merge all three projects into a single service. On June 8, 2013, it was announced that along with Free Social, StatusNet would be merged into the GNU social project and stewarded by the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

, with the project since becoming the dominant variant of StatusNet. During GNU social's lifespan, a popular theme for the

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

named Quitter was used, which was similar to an earlier

interface. Many instances were made specifically using the name Quitter such as Quitter.se, an instance created by the developer of the theme. Before the establishment of

's popularity and dominance within the network, Quitter was noted as a frequent location for users of Twitter to migrate to when users disagreed with moderation policies or feature updates, such as when an algorithmic feed was added to Twitter. A fork of GNU social was made called postActiv, which planned to rewrite the backend and user interface of GNU social, as well as to add compatibility for

Diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...

's protocol.

Features

A basic GNU social instance takes the form of a

service with a reverse chronological

timeline A timeline is a list of events displayed in chronological order. It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labelled with dates paralleling it, and usually contemporaneous events. Timelines can use any suitable scale representing t ...

that features status updates and small messages from followed accounts, similar to other services such as

Weibo Weibo (), or Sina Weibo (), is a Chinese microblogging ( weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily ac ...

. While users could see their own customized timeline, they could access another timeline that showcased every message that the instance knows of, including from other instances that were connected to each other if someone on the instance followed an account from it. Users could also create and join groups, which allows for discussion and collaboration on specific topics. Administrators can also customize their server via the plugin system, which allows developers to create new features or modify existing plugins to suit the needs of the instance via PHP. A notable plugin built for GNU social was Quitter, a revamp of the

that resembles an earlier version of Twitter's user interface.

References

Further information

Building a Better Twitter: A Study of the Twitter Alternatives GNU Social, Quitter, rstat.us, and Twister
(2015)

External links

* {{Microblogging Social software Microblogging software Web applications Free software websites Internet services supporting OpenID Software using the GNU Affero General Public License GNU Project software Fediverse Software that federates via OStatus Software that federates via ActivityPub