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Diaspora rejected the offer to share an open protocol. All 3 (FB, Google & Diaspora) want to own you and your data.

I wish more people knew about Appleseed.
http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

... that they'd be willing to kick down some money for open source, distributed social networking projects (like, Appleseed :)

They may not get any return on their investment, unless you count sweet, sweet revenge.

Diaspora, despite the rocky start, seems to be the most active project working on this. I hope it thrives.

*cough* Appleseed, StatusNet/Identica (which is an official StatusNet instance on the bleeding edge, popular among open-source types like myself).

Not to forget that StatusNet is one of the many social networks that supports the OStatus protocol, a way to follow people on different networks and websites.

Appleseed is open source, distributed social networking, built on a commodity stack, and installs in a few minutes on any LAMP compatible host.

Code is available here:
http://github.com/appleseedproj/appleseed

Appleseed has a main beta site, appleseedproject.org, and approx. 150 test nodes out in the wild. If you'd like an invite, just email invite@appleseedproject.org. It's still in beta, but new features are added regularly.

We've also been fundraising, if you'd like to donate, our fundraising ends in only 4 days, but every little bit counts:

http://www.indiegogo.com/Open-Source-Social-Networking

Here is our roadmap for the future:

http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/roadmap/

Diaspora is also available, here is their github. They are running on Ruby + Rails, and they were MongoDB based, but recently switched to MySQL.

https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora

Try appleseed, it's way farther ahead, and they seem to know what they're doing a lot better.

http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

That was in May. Since then I've put out six revisions.

The thing is, although there was seemingly a stop in development (since 2008/2009, actually), I had never given up on the project. I had a notebook with all the ideas, sketches, mockups, etc. where I wanted to take the project. When Diaspora hit, I emailed them, offering to help. I never heard back, so I decided to push forward on Appleseed.

The pace may seem extraordinary considering I'm essentially the sole full time developer, with most help having come from designers and testers, and I handle a full time job on the side, while I do put in a lot of hours, things have moved along so quickly because I had gamed and spec'd out so much in the year prior.

Check out our roadmap, you'll see exactly where we're going.

http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/roadmap/

You can also send an email to invite@appleseedproject.org for an invite to the beta test site. Here's a screenshot for people who don't want to bother signing up (apologies for FB hosting. we're working on that :)

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs1207.snc4/155927_469182004405_510304405_5358353_7159703_n.jpg

Michael Chisari
Lead Developer, The Appleseed Project

Facebook:
http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/
http://www.joindiaspora.com/
http://www.myspace.com/

Amazon:
http://www.bookfinder.com/about/booksellers/

Skype:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VoIP_software

Twitter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumblr
http://www.plurk.com/

Apple:
http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx
http://www.ubuntu.com/

eBay:
http://online-auction-sites.toptenreviews.com/

Google:
http://www.thesearchenginelist.com/

Well, where is it.

Diaspora: non finished.

Appleseed - no traction.
http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/
Not sexy enough.

What else?

or Appleseed

http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

I wish they would turn to their attention to the next issue of the open Internet, a free and open social network.

Here you go:

http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

I haven't checked recently, but what's the status of voip over jabber? We've seeing a lot of collusion and conglomeration between monolithic "walled garden" services, and I think we'll see more of it. The open source community has alternatives, but I'm starting to think we're going to have to step up our game to fight the momentum that the closed systems have.

I think it's positive that Diaspora was able to raise $200k through crowd-sourcing, and I don't agree with people who say it was a waste of money, if only because it showed it was possible. But the reality is that $200k is pennies in comparison to the funds that Facebook, Skype, and others have. And I think it's fair to say that for every talented, idealistic open source programmer willing to work on the side to open the up communication channels, whether it's the web or voip or anything else, there's dozens of talented developers willing to take large salaries to work on proprietary, walled software.

We seem to have solved a lot of the questions that open source brought up when it was first popularized by Linux (management, how to make a profit, etc), but we still have some big questions to ask in terms of how to fund these projects while maintaining independence, and how to compete with well-funded corporations that have an invested interest in keeping things proprietary and walled off. Not just on features, but on user interface and experience, stability, scalability, and other software design concerns.

I don't know if I have any answers, but I'd sure love to hear suggestions. Call it the next big challenge for open source, but we increasingly need to be able to make user-facing software that appeals to the least savvy of users, we need to make it open and flexible, and we need to make it compete with the cycle of new features that come out of proprietary software with massive bank accounts.

--
Appleseed - Open Source, Distributed Social Networking
http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

They *are* out of their league. Yes, they can learn, obviously. But they lack very basic stuff and they are hoping to release it a month from now. It's completely impossible. There is a reason why Linux 1.0 was only released three years after the first public announcement in the newsgroups.

By the way, yes, there are people building something like it, and AFAIK they've actually started before. The only difference is they weren't paid $200000 to do it.

So true. Here are some other (more mature) projects that DO put focus on protocols.

http://ostatus.org/
http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/
http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/13/onesocialweb-were-ahead-of-diaspora-in-the-creation-of-an-open-facebook/

See also:
http://xmpp.org/xmpp-protocols/xmpp-core/

The only one I'm aware of is Appleseed. It's also distributed, it's in development for several years now, has working beta-servers, and is probably much closer to a final release than Diaspora.

Ok, time to return to Appleseed, the distributed social networking software which already is in development for several years now, already has working beta-servers, and is probably much closer to a final release than Diaspora.

I see where he's going with this, and while I expect that certain aspects of the concepts will eventually be implemented in different ways, we have to be clear that the idea of everyday people administering their own servers is just not practical. I realize everyone here sees it as something we're willing to invest our time in, but most people don't. Servers exist for a reason, there are people (called system administrators) who can specialize in making sure the server software you're accessing, your data, etc. all are secure and have 99% uptime.

I'm not the kind of person who thinks that there is a divide between a sort of tech elite and the unwashed masses who will never understand this stuff. I'm one of those people who thinks that even your grandmother can learn how to recompile Apache given enough time, interest and dedication. The problem is that doctors are busy being doctors, plumbers are busy being plumbers, parents are busy being parents, and so on an so on. Even as a software developer, I prefer to not administer my own servers if I don't have to. I have friends who are very intelligent people who are very accomplished in non-computing fields who use virus and adware-ridden Windows machines. I don't suspect they're interested in taking the time necessary to fully secure a server that holds a digital representation of their life.

So this idea of a total peer-to-peer networking is not an approach I think we should pursue, not because it's not technically achievable (it totally is), but because it's not practical on a social level. This is reflected in the difference between Appleseed's approach to open source social networking and Diaspora's: Appleseed uses a federated node structure, and Diaspora claims to use a P2P, although we haven't seen the code yet, this was the original promise, and since the EFF is backing the project, it fits in with what Moglen is suggesting here.

We'll see where we end up, but I worry that if we push for Moglen's approach, we may see a small ghetto of tech savvy users who adopt it, while everyone else chooses to remain with the proprietary systems, because they're just that much less hassle. It makes much more sense to me to push for federated, hosted solutions, so that an ecosystem of servers (administered by professionals) can exist, and users can move freely between them.

Michael Chisari
http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

I was at the Federated Social Web Summit this July, and over drinks, I was discussing this issue with other open source social networking developers. I mentioned that I've had a few friends pass who still have a presence on the social web (livejournal, facebook, myspace), and I really appreciate being able to go back and remember them that way. I also mentioned that their parents have access to their accounts, so people would get especially unnerved when that "online now" icon would show up or when they would pop up in a chat list, because their parents were checking or closing out their account.

I had a little too much to think, so I posited the idea of a system which learns, based on what you've posted, how to post like you after you're gone. Not a full representation, but a way to continue to create an impression of you. Less like Sonny from I, Robot, and more like Mal from Inception. A shadow of a person, based on what people remember. Or, more specifically, what the system remembers. Since conceivably, generations born in 2000 and up will live their whole lives on the social web, systems will have a lot of information with which to recreate a person's personality. When I suggested this, someone asked, "Why would I have to wait until I died to use this?"

I won't be coding this into Appleseed, because for now, it violates the "Don't Be Creepy" rule that sometimes people break when building prediction software. But there's no reason it can't be done, which means at some point, someone will do it.

Michael Chisari
Appleseed - http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

The Appleseed Project

You can already download the source, put it on your webserver, and connect to the rest of the appleseed network. It's not ready for prime time, but the potential is definitely there.

I think Facebook will be around for a while, but the writing's on the wall: "You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting."

Michael, maybe you could try and get in contact with the diaspora guys (since they're just starting to code and all) so that you can make sure this future is possible (making much more likely for this idea of "open social network" to happen)

There's a summit coming up where all the open source projects focusing on distributed social networking will be getting together to discuss that. Appleseed and Diaspora will be there (along with a bunch more). Should be very interesting!

Michael Chisari
The Appleseed Project - http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

How fast are you expecting this to be developed?

My expectation, have been there and back again, is around 12 months of full time work for four people. This is until something is stable and usable, not what can be considered a "Facebook Killer". To be feature complete with where Facebook is *right now* will take much longer. This is, of course, assuming that their project has a solid blueprint and plan, which won't require any major rewrites or result in any major fundamental design flaws (like being spammer friendly, for instance).

Appleseed is looking at around 9 months to a year to be (basically) feature complete with Facebook, but we have the advantage of a six year head start on Diaspora. A project like this is a massive undertaking, anyone who's released code can tell you that. It's unfortunate that supporters have gotten the idea that the product that will be out in September will be anything but Alpha quality. The interesting thing is to see how Diaspora deals with it's prospective users getting antsy.

Both names don't make a lot of sense to me.

The names of the project don't have to make sense to anyone except for people running servers, really. Can you tell me, off hand, what a Joomla or a Drupal is? Users of distributed social networking hubs only have to know that lolcatfans.tk and havardalumni.edu are compatible with the broader open social network.

Michael Chisari
The Appleseed Project - http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

Work on Appleseed has also been progressing rapidly. In the past month, we've added internationalization, theming, and an MVC+plugin framework. You can see our revised roadmap in the svn:

http://svn.appleseedproject.org/trunk/_documentation/ROADMAP.TXT

Here's my public Appleseed profile using an early version of the new theme:

http://developer.appleseedproject.org/profile/michael.chisari

Remote logins, remote friends connections, remote messaging, journals, photos, discussion groups, sophisticated node control, ACL and privacy controls and more are all working, and will be refined in the coming releases, along with all new features like one-click server upgrades, search, micro-blogging, and more.

Michael Chisari
Appleseed - http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

Work on Appleseed has also been progressing rapidly. In the past month, we've added internationalization, theming, and an MVC+plugin framework. You can see our revised roadmap in the svn:

http://svn.appleseedproject.org/trunk/_documentation/ROADMAP.TXT

Here's my public Appleseed profile using an early version of the new theme:

http://developer.appleseedproject.org/profile/michael.chisari

Remote logins, remote friends connections, remote messaging, journals, photos, discussion groups, sophisticated node control, ACL and privacy controls and more are all working, and will be refined in the coming releases, along with all new features like one-click server upgrades, search, micro-blogging, and more.

Michael Chisari
Appleseed - http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

Work on Appleseed has also been progressing rapidly. In the past month, we've added internationalization, theming, and an MVC+plugin framework. You can see our revised roadmap in the svn:

http://svn.appleseedproject.org/trunk/_documentation/ROADMAP.TXT

Here's my public Appleseed profile using an early version of the new theme:

http://developer.appleseedproject.org/profile/michael.chisari

Remote logins, remote friends connections, remote messaging, journals, photos, discussion groups, sophisticated node control, ACL and privacy controls and more are all working, and will be refined in the coming releases, along with all new features like one-click server upgrades, search, micro-blogging, and more.

Michael Chisari
Appleseed - http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

The whole idea of "if you don't want it public, don't put it on the internet" always reminds me of this Onion video:

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village
http://www.theonion.com/video/google-opt-out-feature-lets-users-protect-privacy,14358/

There's no reason that we can't have a reasonable expectation of privacy, even in our online lives. Especially from a technical standpoint. If I share some photos with 10 people, and one of those people decides to copy that photo into an email and send it off to 100 people, then that's a social failure, not a technical one. People I trusted betrayed my trust, on a social level.

But on a technical level, I should be able to share videos or photos or journal posts with a small group of trusted people, and be reasonably secure in the idea that only they will see them. That advertisers won't have access to that photo, that an api won't be able to pull the data without permission, etc. There's nothing extraordinary about that requirement, and that it's treated as absurd and unreasonable shows how far we've fallen from a basic perspective on internet privacy.

Open source can fill the gap. Our incentive, as open source software developers, is to provide the best software possible, and to not skimp on important features like privacy and security. We aren't trying to cater to advertisers, or to build empires based on fads and hype. I've been working on an open source, distributed social networking alternative to Facebook (and Myspace and other "walled gardens") that called Appleseed that focuses on strong privacy.

http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

But most of all, by distributing these services, and allowing users to cancel their profile on one site, sign up for another site, and plug right back into the network they lost, it creates a level of competition so that social networking sites *have* to listen to the concerns of their users. They can't take them for granted. Not just in social networking, if we can continue push for open standards, open protocols, open platforms, etc., it means we have some leverage when a popular service decides to privilege it's revenue stream over the privacy of it's users.

As the poster above stated, I am aware of that issue. Also, the latest tarball is VERY out-of-date. For the past couple years, I've been committing to svn (which is open to the public for checkouts at svn.appleseedproject.org) instead of creating distribution packages.

I'm working on getting an up-to-date tarball package out within the next few days (tonight if I have the time). In the meantime, if you'd like to try it out, you can send an email to invite@appleseedproject.org to get an invite code, so you can test out the beta site:

http://appleseedproject.org/

I've visited the project's site several times but the site http://www.appleseedproject.org/ to which the project is still linking has long been claimed by advertisers... rather dispiriting.

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: One of the biggest things holding social networking back is that people still have this conception of it that is very reminiscent of a 1996 Wired Magazine article. That it's all very cool and hip and revolutionary.

Social networking isn't gonna get anywhere until people everywhere see it as a basic tool, no more, no less. You don't see kids bragging about their email address, do you? Why are teenagers acting the fool over the fact that they have a myspace?

I've been working on a distributed social networking software called Appleseed (at Sourceforge, and a test site at Appleseedproject.org. The idea is to distribute social networking across an infinite number of sites, all of which can communicate with each other flawlessly. Basically, taking the decentralized theory of the internet, and applying it to social networking software.

One of the effects I think this will have, is that a lot of people will join social networking sites who might be normally turned off by a monolothic cesspool such as MySpace. Ridiculous hipsters can have their site, and people who don't suck could have their own site, and someone who doesn't suck could still maintain a relationship with their hipster "friend" so that they can hear where the parties are without having to wear girls jeans and have a haircut that proves that the world has no sense of decency.

Yes, this means that your uncle and your mom and your cousin and even maybe your grandparents are gonna be do the whole social networking thing. Luckily, Appleseed has a lot of privacy options, so you can hide your BDSM Leninist Reading Group from your family.

One of the effects of the "uncooling" of social networking, I think, will be that people recognize that you're not hanging out at 80's night at the local club, or chilling with your friends at a private party. You're broadcasting your life to the whole damn world. Once I think people realize that, I think the absurd and abnormal social habits that social networking creates are going to quickly disappear.

At the very least, I sincerely hope so.

The appleseed site you're looking at was just the site explaining the project.

There's a test site at http://www.appleseedproject.org/ but that's currently down.