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Sick of Facebook and Want To Use Something Open Source?

Posted at 5:30 pm by brett on May 19th, 2010

Under categories: Ubuntu,Web Development

Many people are sick of Facebook and their lack of care for privacy. Websites have been setup to make users aware of privacy policy changes, new features Facebook has added (for better or worse) and even JavaScript programs that analyze how open your Facebook profile really is.

A group of four young programmers from NYU's Courant Institute have started a Facebook-killer project to decentralize the web, called Diaspora.

They have raised almost $200,000 using KickStarter.com when there goal was a mere $10,000. They have plans to make the software distributed (very git-like, if you're a programmer), allowing users and companies to set up their own servers, all running off what I assume will be diaspora.com (except that domain has already been squatted).

The project will be licensed AGPL, hosted on GitHub and feature end-to-end encryption for communication between servers and the clients that use the software. Their plans for the first release are:

  • Full-fledged communications between Seeds (Diaspora instances)
  • End to end GPG
  • External Service Scraping of most major services (reclaim your data)
  • Version 1 of Diaspora’s API with documentation
  • Public GitHub repository of all Diaspora code

Followed by:

  • OpenID
  • Voice-over IP
  • Distributed Encrypted Backups
  • Instant Messaging protocol
  • UDP integration

for their future releases.

That's a lot of nerd speak for:

Diaspora knows how to securely share (using GPG) your pictures, videos, and more. When you have a Diaspora seed of your own, you own your social graph, you have access to your information however you want, whenever you want, and you have full control of your online identity.

So if you are sick of worrying about Facebook privacy and believe in open source software, why not pledge a dollar or two to their cause or simply tell your friends?

They plan to have their first release up and running by September 2010.

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  • twilightomni

    No offense meant, but isn't this smoke and mirrors?

    That is to say, from what I understand of the fundraising, they haven't even started programming yet. A September release of an alternative Facebook platform with no up-front work done? Sounds implausible.

  • twilightomni

    No offense meant, but isn't this smoke and mirrors?

    That is to say, from what I understand of the fundraising, they haven't even started programming yet. A September release of an alternative Facebook platform with no up-front work done? Sounds implausible.

  • Yann

    How do we know these guys even have the skills necessary? This "give us money and we ll code, we promise" might just be a big scam.
    Once they've written something and proven they might be able to do it I'll think about it. Right now it's just words.

  • Yann

    How do we know these guys even have the skills necessary? This "give us money and we ll code, we promise" might just be a big scam.
    Once they've written something and proven they might be able to do it I'll think about it. Right now it's just words.

  • http://ubuntoogle.info MrUbuntoogle

    There's also The Appleseed Project http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

    I hope to see this idea take fruit in a large way. We already have the largest social network we could ever want inherent in what we label 'the internet'

  • http://ubuntoogle.info MrUbuntoogle

    There's also The Appleseed Project http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

    I hope to see this idea take fruit in a large way. We already have the largest social network we could ever want inherent in what we label 'the internet'

  • http://candrews.integralblue.com Craig

    Woah - Bad idea! According to Diaspora's kickstarter page: "Once we have made our first solid iteration, we are going to release our code" - who decides when this "first solid iteration" ends? Will the code ever really be released?

    Also, Diaspora *REALLY* does not need more money. There are PLENTY of projects and foundations that desperately need the donations, and will provide virtually guaranteed results - such as Gnome or the FSF. Please donate to them - not 4 people who have already been pledged *way* more money than they need.

  • http://candrews.integralblue.com Craig

    Woah - Bad idea! According to Diaspora's kickstarter page: "Once we have made our first solid iteration, we are going to release our code" - who decides when this "first solid iteration" ends? Will the code ever really be released?

    Also, Diaspora *REALLY* does not need more money. There are PLENTY of projects and foundations that desperately need the donations, and will provide virtually guaranteed results - such as Gnome or the FSF. Please donate to them - not 4 people who have already been pledged *way* more money than they need.

  • mrmcq2u

    Take a look at onesocialweb , an open source distributed social network based off of xmpp sponsored by vodafone that is already more than just vapor.

  • mrmcq2u

    Take a look at onesocialweb , an open source distributed social network based off of xmpp sponsored by vodafone that is already more than just vapor.

  • Fabian Rodriguez

    I tend not to trust someone that doesn't make the difference between GPG and OpenPGP :)

  • Fabian Rodriguez

    I tend not to trust someone that doesn't make the difference between GPG and OpenPGP :)

  • ethana2

    I use GNewBook.

  • ethana2

    I use GNewBook.

  • http://designmachine.ca Chris Roy

    Umm.. Kick starter is a real site.

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