Back GNU social Czech GNU Social German GNU social Esperanto GNU Social Spanish گنو سوشال Persian GNU social French GNU social Italian GNU social Japanese GNU 소셜 Korean GNU social Dutch

GNU social

GNU social
Original author(s)Evan Prodromou et al.
Developer(s)Diogo Cordeiro and GNU social Developers
Final release
1.20.9[1] Edit this on Wikidata / 22 June 2019
Preview release
2.0.0beta0[2] Edit this on Wikidata / 18 July 2021
Repository
Written inPHP
Operating systemCross-platform
Available inMore than 25 languages[3]
TypeSocial networking service
LicenseAGPL-3.0-or-later[4]
Websitegnusocial.network

GNU social (and its predecessor StatusNet) is a free and open-source microblogging social networking service that implements the OStatus and ActivityPub standards for interoperability between installations. While offering similar functionality to social networks such as Twitter, 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.[5][6]

At its peak in popularity, GNU social had been deployed on hundreds of interconnected instances,[7] however has since fallen into disuse as competing software like Mastodon and Pleroma have taken its position as the dominant federated microblogging services. Later on in its lifespan, the project split into two separate branches, 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,[8] with the v3 branch also no longer being actively developed not long after by November 25, 2022,[9] 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 network and has had a major influence on the design of more modern decentralized social networks that succeeded it.

  1. ^ "Diogo Cordeiro 518431ad72 [CORE]". 22 June 2019. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  2. ^ "Diogo Peralta Cordeiro 5a856a728d [VersionBump] 2.0.0beta0". 18 July 2021. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  3. ^ "Translating:GNU social localization". Retrieved 2015-02-08.
  4. ^ "README file". Archived from the original on 2014-11-03. Retrieved 2015-02-09. ...under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
  5. ^ Terdiman, Daniel (2008-10-06). "Taking on Twitter with open-source software". CNET. Retrieved 2024-08-29.
  6. ^ Bastien, Malcolm (2008-8-28) Why Laconica Means Big Things For Corporate Micro Blogging Archived 2009-01-25 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2009-1-3.
  7. ^ "List of Independent GNU social Instances - I ask questions". 2017-02-20. Archived from the original on 2017-02-20. Retrieved 2024-04-04.
  8. ^ diogo. "diogo/gnu-social". notabug.org. Retrieved 2024-04-04.
  9. ^ GNUsocial. "gnu-social". Codeberg.org. Retrieved 2024-04-04.

Developed by StudentB