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Open-Source Social Network Diaspora Goes Live
CWmike writes "Diaspora, a widely anticipated social network site built on open-source code, has cracked open its doors for business, at least for a handful of invited participants. 'Every week, we'll invite more people,' stated the developers behind the project, in a blog item posted Tuesday announcing the alpha release of the service. 'By taking these baby steps, we'll be able to quickly identify performance problems and iterate on features as quickly as possible.' Such a cautious rollout may be necessary, given how fresh the code is. In September, when the first version of the working code behind the service was posted, it was promptly criticized for being riddled with security errors. While Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg may not be worried about Diaspora quite yet, the service is one of a growing number of efforts to build out open-source-based social-networking software and services."
'Every week, we'll invite more people,'
I guess they'll be sending Friend Requests via Facebook?
Yeah except for the fact that it offers nothing that the average user of Facebook wants or cares about.
Sure there is. Who's always the first adopters for open-source anti-corporatist programs? Nerds like us. Firefox started as the nerd's browser. Linux started as the nerd's OS - and it still is, on the desktop. So, for now, think of it as "Facebook for Slashdotters".
Security is a design philosophy. Either you've done it right, from the ground up, with your basic code writing habits, or you haven't. A redesign isn't going to cut it. You'd have to do a total rewrite.
Appleseed is getting close to production ready (and it's quite usable already).
But, heck, if Diaspora has the mindshare maybe we should go with it... even if its not technically the greatest?
What mindshare, exactly, does Diaspora have? As far as I can tell, it's some subset of the same people who keep thinking desktop Linux is going to take off any year now.
So far, in these comments, pretty much every pro-Diaspora commenter mentions how it's open source. I've got news for you guys - the vast majority of people don't give a rat's rear end whether it, or any other piece of software, is open source or not. Sure, you can argue why they should care, and pretend all the great unwashed are going to awaken and come around to your way of thinking really soon now... but the onus is on you to show that's even remotely likely.
#DeleteChrome
Yeah except for the fact that it offers nothing that the average user of Facebook wants or cares about.
Looking at it another way, perhaps it does not do what the average user of Facebook does not want.
Apart from privacy issues, one of the problems I see with Facebook is the bloat (or crud) factor. Diaspora does not have that, at least not now.
I have my fingers crossed.
Never trust a spiritual leader who cannot dance -- Mr. Miyagi
If you think about it, /. is like a facebook for nerds. Articles are similar to walls, moderation is used as the 'like' button, blogs are like notes, and I /. stalk just like on facebook. :P
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Considering their revenues were 52 million in 2006, and they launched in 2004, I'd say you're off a bit on your estimate.
It took them longer to turn a profit, but they were clearly generating a sizable income off their web site within 2 years of launch. Given that, I'd say it's pretty safe to say that they probably launched with a pretty coherent business plan in place. You don't grow from launch to 52 million in revenue accidentally.
Just had this pointed out to me:
* Goto http://www.joindiaspora.com/ using Internet Explorer
Instead of showing the page, what do you get? I'll tell you... a blank page with the following title:
You need to use a real browser in order to use Diaspora!
I'm not a IE fan, but this happens with Internet Explorer 8 for goodness sakes. Probably happens with IE9 too. FFS stop showing your fanboyish nature guys; you're basically stating that a good portion of users who only use IE, even if they're using a modern version of it with modern security features like sand-boxing and whatnot, is apparently not "real" enough for your fucking site.
This really does piss me off. Makes the rest of us "open" FOSS users look like a pack of childish geeks who have no idea. You want your little social site to work? Don't arbitrarily restrict browsers!
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
It seems that Diaspora somehow got that NYTimes article, got mucho donations from that even though at that point they had NO CODE, and yet somehow now I hear about it all the time as somehow it's going to be a "facebook killer".
Linux got popular initially because Torvalds is an excellent programmer and his project spread through word-of-mouth. Diaspora got discovered because there was a Times article about vaporware.
That is a bit of stretch.
There are a complete lack of pictures on slashdot on which to formulate a decision to stalk or ignore. Unless we begin uuencoding our pictures into our posts and blogs there is no evidence to base this decision.
In order to assist in the stalking section we will need the addition of a radial button that defines our hotness aka stalking susceptibility. Until this is implemented we will have to identify our level of attractiveness manually.
I of course am smoking hot.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
It's probably invitation-only because they have no way of searching for other Diaspora users and adding them short of exchanging URLs: http://groups.google.com/group/diaspora-discuss/browse_thread/thread/60f32519f623e690/23109444fefa1640?#23109444fefa1640 Diaspora's answer to Facebook's search? Google search! (I'm not making this up, read that thread)
There may be no incentive to join Diaspora, but I think that today could still mark a turning point. It provides a set of APIs that can be used to federate social networks. Facebook may not be interested in joining, but smaller networks will have a strong incentive to join. It could be like email thirty years ago. Back then there were lots of proprietary email systems that didn't interconnect. SMTP provided a common interconnection and eventually even the largest providers had to join. If one of the other major social networks, such as LinkedIn, MySpace or Orkut, were to federate with Diaspora, it would start a chain reaction. The only question would be if Facebook is already big enough to ignore a combination of all of its competitors. I'm betting that it's not.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
I'm a little late to the discussion, but I'll throw in anyways.
The really important facet of what a Facebook alternative should look like is the ability to dis-intermediate the service from me and my use of the data that is collected about me. Facebook has barely supported an export feature, but removing my data from what is essentially a social connection tool to others is not a plan.
Example:
I own my cell phone, but I can choose to move myself, my data, (and in most places my phone number) to a different carrier. That means that the separation of the carrier in itself doesn't break my ability to communicate with friends or family through a mobile device. As it stands with social networks, if you're all on the same network, you can talk to one another. If you decide A and my sister decides B then there's no communication flow, and the ability to interact comes to an end.
The ability to make an alternative Facebook is important in the ability to further control what I do with my own data, the ability to use my entered data outside of some company's pervue, and to have a service that I can easily add, interact with people and not feel like I'm tied to something I don't like. Facebook is a closed ecosystem. They consume content and lock it up from prying eyes. If Diaspora has or will have support for open inter-operating service offerings then great, otherwise they're just building another Facebook wanna be to take over the world. Who cares if Diaspora's code is Open Source if my interaction with the system and my data is shackled behind a single company's vision of how social networking should work?
Bye!
These aren't "bugs," these are "gaping holes in security and privacy controls that don't appear to even have been considered."
There's a difference between "our security system will behave badly when somebody presents it with a specially crafted URL, leading to unauthorized escalation of privileges" (a bug) and "our security system assumes that anybody accessing URL automatically has access to update, modify, delete, etc. anything at that URL." (a gaping hole in security, and a glaring *design* flaw).
Unless you define "bug" to be such a broad category that it includes "incomplete, poorly thought-out rubbish," you cannot call some of these issues "bugs" in the software.
Facebook's selling point was its exclusivity [...] There's no incentive to join Diaspora.
You've contradicted yourself. Exclusivity is exactly what Diaspora will have. And it's not Facebook, your grandmother uses Facebook. Mainstream, pedestrian. For people who think Farmville is cool.
FB is screaming out for an "exclusive" alternative. It's way overdue for the "omg are you still using lamebook?" effect.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You want to see photos of nerds? You're crazy! Better leave them uu or base64 encoded.
If they learned from their mistakes and adopted safer coding practices and added infrastructure that enforces proper security on the code then the review has paid off. On the other hand, if they only fixed the security bugs that were pointed out and continued coding the way they did before then it will never be secure since there won't be enough reviewers to keep up with all the new bugs being added.
Yes, things would have been worse if this source was not open, but that doesn't necessarily mean the code is good enough now.
Linux "got popular" because *some* ( Windows still rules the market ) people wanted an alternative to Microsoft Windows.
Diaspora *may* get popular because many people want an alternative to Facebook.
Once again: WE KNOW that you can build a social network, and we also know that you can build an open-source social network. It's been done. The project was not "interesting" from that perspective - Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Appleseed, and a host of other 'social networks' have already done one or both of those things.
The key differentiator for Diaspora was the goal of creating a secure, decentralized model that put the user in charge of their own privacy. The differentiator emphatically WAS NOT that they were "open source" - again, that's already been proven to be possible by other projects.
Which brings us to the question of why we *should* give a shit about Diaspora. I'll let their Kickstarter writeup speak for itself, here's what they had to say:
Please point out for me where they say "we aim to open source Facebook," because I'm not seeing it.
The GOAL of Diaspora was to create a more-secure social networking environment which gave control of user privacy back to the users.
The METHOD they intended to use was to open-source what they produced, and then build a community around it.
The RESULT was an unmitigated mess: the code they spent months writing did NOTHING to achieve their stated goals, in fact it was even LESS secure and private than Facebook, because it ignored standard and common security and privacy practices - things which should be part of your design from the ground up, including user authentication and access control for each and every operation the system performs.
They started out by saying "We're going to build an alternative which puts the user in control of their data." They created an alternative which puts ANY user in control of ANY data.
This is not trolling, this is an honest assessment of the progress & results of Diaspora. Their goals were more security & more privacy. They achieved neither of those goals with the code they wrote. Open source is not some magic sauce you marinate your code in in order to improve it, but suddenly the entire focus of Diaspora has gone from "it's more secure and more private," (their initial, stated goals) to "it's open source," as if that forgives the multitude of failings that the code has, simply because a bunch of people can read the source that implements those design flaws.