Bonum Certa Men Certa

No Need for a Diaspora Away From JoinDiaspora, as the Pod Looks Like It'll Survive After All

Video download link | md5sum 0f2481707b0c14e5db0efe443bc0173c Looks Like JoinDiaspora Will be OK Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: There's technical work/discussion and apparently advanced diplomacy/negotiation underway to pass JoinDiaspora to new hands, giving this very important pod (over 316,000 registered users; the video erroneously says "316") a new lease of life

TO understand the choice of the name diaspora one needs to understand the roots and the motivation of the project. It was initially about people fleeing Facebook, which had become far too evil for a lot of people. Even more than a decade ago! Funds were raised to make Diaspora happen. Now it's free for all of us to share! More than a decade later... we're still here.



"It was initially about people fleeing Facebook, which had become far too evil for a lot of people."Last week I wrote about the JoinDiaspora situation because it looked like JoinDiaspora was in serious trouble, with possibly just 18 days away from permanent shutdown. It takes 14 days to decide on succession in a sort of vote on whether to pass it to another "podadmin". That's according to what Lukas, the current "podadmin" (whom I am eternally grateful to!), has told me. Now that we're 14 days away from the deadline I'm happy to quote Dennis Schubert as saying: "Don’t worry about the March 1st timeline - even if our preparations are not done by then, everything will be fine. Please refrain from spamming Lukas, me, or anyone else. That doesn’t make things go any faster. Make yourself a hot chocolate or something and relax."

It seems like they're working things out. Schubert already said 3 years ago: "Happy to take over joindiaspora.com immediately - regardless of the hosting platform and the state it’s in - as well as covering all expenses from my personal account as a temporary solution until account migrations are ready for prime time so that joindiaspora users can distribute more evenly. Lukas, you know how to reach me."

"It's not "just another pod", it's the "original" pod with lots of historic value and over 316,000 registered users."They're now in active discussions (probably of a technical and legal nature) and Schubert says: "I will write a comment here in this thread saying as much on Sunday, Feb. 20th."

That's next weekend.

The bottom line is, we've quite likely found a new "podadmin" (implicit assurance; quite a few people got involved), whom I trust based on his track record at Mozilla and elsewhere. As noted in the video above, we should fully support whoever takes over. Lukas is being a bit picky as he wishes to ensure the pod is left in responsible hands with long-term commitment. Let's wait patiently for next Sunday. So much of my advocacy (and hundreds of thousands of posts from "Linux"/"Tux Machines") did depend on this pod. It was where a lot of my posts originate from (including "tweets"). It's not "just another pod", it's the "original" pod with lots of historic value and over 316,000 registered users. See some of the comments in the active thread; the pod means so much to so many people!

Yellow daffodilsDiaspora is not a dying platform. The dying platforms are Social Control Media 'bubbles' such as Google+ -- a bubble which itself resulted in Pluspora with 15,722 users and over a million comments. Let's keep federating because if the main alternatives to that are centralised garbage (such as YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and Microsoft LinkedIn), then even a "lesser evil" (not self-hosting but federation) is worth defending. Here is what Schubert told me when JoinDiaspora had technical issues and Lukas was in Japan.

Happy to take over joindiaspora.com immediately - regardless of the hosting platform and the state it’s in - as well as covering all expenses from my personal account as a temporary solution until account migrations are ready for prime time so that joindiaspora users can distribute more evenly. Lukas, you know how to reach me.



Image licence: CC BY-SA 3.0, photo source.

Recent Techrights' Posts

'Tech' Gimmicks Are for Advertising, Not for Usability
In the case of Microsoft, they latched onto slop
BetaNews Sacked Brian Fagioli and Deleted His Comments, But He Still Tries to Use the "BetaNews" Brand for Self-Affirmation
Fagioli takes the work of other people
[Meme] Hard to Be a Better Person?
Sooner or later they'll realise that for each pound I spend they need to spend about 1,000 times more
New US Editor for The Register is a Microsoft Booster
"Avram Piltch has served as US editor for The Register since July 2025."
Reda Demanded That FSF Removes Its Founder, Now Reda Works Directly for Microsoft
A sellout and a traitor, first working for GAFAM, now Microsoft
PCLinuxOS is Raising Money to Support Development After Fire Incident at the Host
PCLinuxOS has not had announcements lately
Over 3 Months Later Brett Wilson LLP Still Unable to Recruit a Media Lawyer?
"Immediate start", but not found... still unfilled
Microsoft is Trying to "Pull a Nokia" on GNU/Linux as Desktop/Laptop Platform
We all remember that rather well, don't we?
 
Gemini Links 24/07/2025: Forgejo Woes and Smolnet Directory Week
Links for the day
Misinformation is Not Intelligence
It's low-grade plagiarism and it fails to show any signs of intelligence
Links 24/07/2025: Storage Tapes Still Kicking, Windows TCO 'on Steroids' (Microsoft-Induced Catastrophes)
Links for the day
Bobby Borisov (LinuxIac) Has Apparently Begun Experimenting With LLM Slop, So We Cannot Trust LinuxIac Anymore
So did LinuxIac become a slopfarm? Maybe not yet, but it's getting there
Informa TechTarget's ITProToday is Becoming a Slopfarm Generated by Microsoft Chatbots
Busted.
The LLM Con Artists Are Highly Destructive
Who will ever be held accountable for this scam?
Too Bribed by Microsoft to Move to Free Software?
Microsoft lies and Microsoft bribery (in politics)
Microsoft Hiring European Politicians is Another Form of Bribery; There Should be a European Investigation
When Microsoft bribed people in Europe for OOXML (there's no denying this!) a European government delegate said that Microsoft operated like a cult
Speed of the Site Should be Better Now
The "bot attacks" impact the speed of the sister site too
Getting More From AnalogNowhere
Recently we used many images from AnalogNowhere
Microsoft, Microsofters and 'Secure' Boot Shills Already Storming the LWN Report About Expiring Certificate, Shooting the Messenger
LWN has clearly stuck a nerve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Disable "Secure" Boot Today (the Only Better Time to Do So Was Yesterday)
Don't trust anything Red Hat tells you about security
Links 23/07/2025: Windows Killed Company After 150+ Years, US Government Mimics Russia's Attacks on the Media
Links for the day
Freedom Generally Wins at the End, History Shows (But It's Constantly Attacked, Too)
At the moment people realise "Linux" (e.g. Android) isn't enough to guarantee any freedoms
“Inhumane” and “Disgusting” Mass Layoff Execution, According to Microsoft Staff
The workers are looking for other places to work
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Slogan for Its 40th Anniversary
The freedoms are what's most important
LLM Slopfarms gbhackers.com, "Cyber Press" and CyberSecurityNews Are Drowning Google News (and Shame on Google for Feeding and Facilitating Them)
All are run by the same people
Links 23/07/2025: Droplets GUI Patent Monopoly Challenge, Nokia Leverages Illegal Patent Court Against Rivals
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Community in Geminispace and Challenges With Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: Thinkpad and Pinephone
Links for the day
Links 22/07/2025: "Blog Restart" and Microsoft Clobbered by “ToolShell"
Links for the day
Global Warming and Global GAFAM Energy-Wasting
Burn more money (borrowed, loans), then hope the waste will somehow translate into profit?
No Compliance With the European Patent Convention (EPC) at the European Patent Office (EPO)
It's about preventing competition against this autocracy
Blue-Collar Trolls vs White-Collar Trolls
Examples of white-collar trolls
Apple Vision Pro Failed So Badly That Its Sales Are About 2,000 Times Smaller Than iPhone Sales
What's left for Apple to offer other than hype?
To Millions of People "Year of the Linux Desktop" Was Some Time in the 1990s (Bootable GNU/Linux as a Complete Operating System is Over 33 in Age)
In some sense, "year of the Linux desktop" was 33 years ago
Make No Assumptions (or Demands) About the Screen Resolution Used by Other People
There are usability aspects, aside from accessibility aspects
Why Wayland (and XWayland) Won't Solve the Key Problem It Proclaims to be Tackling (the Same Is True for Rust)
The problem isn't Wayland per se but the false promises and efforts to force everybody to move to it whilst insulting or demonising everyone who won't play along
They Don't Tell Us that 'Digitalisation' (Now Sold as "Hey Hi") Just Means Customers Become Unpaid Staff and Are Made Accountable
People are being conditioned to associate technology with something undesirable, at times even unbearable
Diplomatic Immunity Should Not Exist for Anybody
The EPO in its current form gradually 'normalises' the end of European democracy
Brett Wilson LLP Stopped Sending Me Papers When I Showed It had Sent Me Over 5 Kilograms of Legal Papers
A week ago we lodged our third lawsuit
Microsoft Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns Became the New Normal at Microsoft
Microsoft mass layoffs became a topic of everyday media coverage since May
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Has Layoffs and Microsoft Gaming/Entertainment Division Has an Uncertain Future
it's good to see all those horrible things crashing and burning
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 21, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 21, 2025
FSF "Raised Almost $139,000 During This Summer Campaign"
"Thank you for making a stand against dystopia!"
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: VPS Exploited and Fear of View
Links for the day