New Fediverse features that actually aren't new
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Whenever someone announces to "bring" something "to the Fediverse", chances are that Friendica has actually had it since 2010, for five and a half years longer than Mastodon has been around.
For example, just about everyone on Mastodon is fully convinced that Eugen Rochko has brought quote-posts to the Fediverse this year. That's because next to nobody on Mastodon knows that Friendica has been able to quote-post practically everything in the Fediverse, including Mastodon toots, for 15 years now.
And if Friendica doesn't have it, chances are still that Hubzilla has it, and that Hubzilla has probably had it for longer than Mastodon has been around, too.
For example, private messages that are actually private. Mastodon doesn't have them because the "privacy" of Mastodon DMs is only "guaranteed" by limiting whom a DM is sent to. Hubzilla does have them and has had them since 2012, since it was still named Red. How? Because Hubzilla also limits who is permitted to see a DM.
Oh, and Hubzilla even offers optional encryption on top of that.
Or how about server-independent identity? Everyone still waiting for Bluesky to finally be the pioneer who invents this and implements it for the first time? LOL! Once again, Hubzilla has had this since 2012. Not a vague concept, not an unstable proof-of-concept, but daily-driven by production-grade channels on production-grade servers. (streams) has it, too, inherited from Hubzilla through a whole number of forks. Forte has it, too, and Forte is the first and, so far, only Fediverse server software that uses ActivityPub for nomadic identity.
Now I'm waiting for someone to announce that something will "bring" actual groups "to the Fediverse". A feature that was actually introduced to the Fediverse by StatusNet in 2008, and that's also available on Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte. Not to mention that the very principle of the Threadiverse (Lemmy, the remains of /kbin, Mbin, PieFed) is based on groups.
This is what happens when you think that the feature set of the whole Fediverse is the feature set of Mastodon and maybe Pixelfed because that's all you know.
Speaking of Mastodon: Just because it's being "brought to the Fediverse", doesn't mean it'll be adopted by Mastodon.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #MastodonCentrism #MastodonNormativity #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #NomadicIdentity #StatusNet #Threadiverse #Lemmy #/kbin #Mbin #PieFed #Groups #FediGroups #FediverseGroups -
That giant pile of hashtags and you don't use #ActivityPub? 😂
@julian Many of the hashtags that I use are not for discovery or not only. They are also or exclusively there to trigger filters. -
@julian said in New Fediverse features that actually aren't new:
> Don't forget NodeBB is also based off of groups! We've increased support for it in 2025 and it's continuing to be our core focus into 2026.No one familiar with the Fediverse can ignore it! In my opinion, NodeBB represents the most complete implementation of Activitypub groups today, adding the ergonomics of Lemmy and the versatility of Kbin to the great flexibility of Friendica!
NodeBB forum categories function as excellent Activitypub groups, perfectly compatible for Mastodon users.
Unfortunately, while users Lemmy/Piefed, Mbin, and Friendica can easily view NodeBB groups, Mastodon users lack a valid interface for managing groups, and almost no one is familiar with the Raccoon app, which is the only app that can recognize Activitypub groups and group discussions by topic.
For me, NodeBB was the best surprise in the Fediverse of this amazing 2025, and I thank the entire development team again for this wonderful gift!
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
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Our initial clients will be built in JavaScript, so you’d need to enable JS on your browser to use it (for now)
And, it will require special features on your server, so this won’t work on Mastodon (for now)
Download the road, things will change. We’re defining a standard API that anyone can build in. So hopefully someone can built installable clients (iOS, Android, desktop) that work separate from your browser.
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@bonfire
How will this work for clients of servers with no JavaScript, like #snac2 and #honk? Well the server be doing the decryption as surely that breaks the point of it being "end-to-end"?
@swf @sovtechfund @benpate
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@daniel@gultsch.social The Lemmy developers have added a user profile field where you can enter a Matrix account. It would certainly be better to also add a link to XMPP, and I believe this would be the most viable way to immediately achieve secure communication in the Fediverse.
However, it's always helpful for someone to try to "reinvent the wheel": diversity is a very prolific mother of solutions to problems that don't yet exist.
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@julian said in New Fediverse features that actually aren't new:
> Don't forget NodeBB is also based off of groups! We've increased support for it in 2025 and it's continuing to be our core focus into 2026.No one familiar with the Fediverse can ignore it! In my opinion, NodeBB represents the most complete implementation of Activitypub groups today, adding the ergonomics of Lemmy and the versatility of Kbin to the great flexibility of Friendica!
NodeBB forum categories function as excellent Activitypub groups, perfectly compatible for Mastodon users.
Unfortunately, while users Lemmy/Piefed, Mbin, and Friendica can easily view NodeBB groups, Mastodon users lack a valid interface for managing groups, and almost no one is familiar with the Raccoon app, which is the only app that can recognize Activitypub groups and group discussions by topic.
For me, NodeBB was the best surprise in the Fediverse of this amazing 2025, and I thank the entire development team again for this wonderful gift!
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Latest FOSS Academic post is -- you guessed it -- a 2025 year in review post. Thrill to the fact that I'm using much of the same FOSS to do my work as I always have! Feel the chills as I talk about #generativeAI and how terrible it is! Above all, join me in living the FOSS Academic Lifestyle Dream!
https://fossacademic.tech/2025/12/21/year-in-review.html
Replies to this post will appear as comments on the blog thanks to the magic of #ActivityPub!
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@mariusor hey I haven’t published it yet, I’ll be doing so in the next couple of weeks
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@django is the code available anywhere, I'd like to have a look if possible.
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to be clear there are more issues than being able to represent an actor alongside a post
but the short version is that not having a proxyUrl endpoint means your client will hit CORS everywhere!
