Gemini is not Gopher
THE coding/code required to launch Techrights (TR) as a Gemini server (similar to the ol' "gopher" protocol but somewhat more advanced and secure) is mostly ready by now, albeit it's in stable alpha phase/quality. Our team has been working hard on this since the weekend. We're enthusiasts of replacing the World Wide Web if we cannot fix it (and let's face it, the W3C is thoroughly infiltrated by monopolies by now).
"We'll do our best to secure availability and make all the information robust to censorship."With a domain set up/registered (probably just a subdomain will do for now), links automatically added to static files (such as bulletins and IRC logs), a Gemini front page for TR, and indexes updated using cron jobs (we'll write scripts to update everything, frequently, over time) we'll probably be up and running very soon. How soon? We don't want to promise anything or self-impose a deadline. It's being tested locally first. If it grows a lot larger over time, self-hosting scope would be forsaken in favour of something 'beefier'. With IPFS, for instance, self-hosting is possible because it is decentralised and so our objects, which get pinned elsewhere, can be served from anywhere around the world. Once they're shared outwards anyway... (self-replication in swarms)
We're extremely excited about the whole thing. Not many news sites, either in the domain of Free software or outside it, have presence in Gemini capsules (that's what such "sites" are called in Gemini). Our capsule will be very, very large and extensive. Thanks to a lot of code, as well as a lot of underlying "content", our Gemini capsule will likely be one of the largest out there in cyberspace.
In terms of censorship and free speech, Gemini isn't all that great compared to IPFS. It's a centralised thing, the protocol isn't designed to withstand downtimes, and so censorious institutions (such as Benoît Battistelli's EPO, where António Campinos shields the institution from investigations into corruption) can still leverage lawyers and aggressive threats. That would not work as long as we use IPFS. As a side note, as we've just noted in the latest Daily Links, "The legality of Board of Appeal oral proceedings by video conference has been referred to the EBA," but there's "no mention of the fact, by AstraZenecaKat, that the judges on this Board lack actual autonomy and would likely just do what the Office demands. AstraZenecaKat moreover says that "In G2/19 the EBA found that Haar was indeed in Munich," but this is a lie. They threw out the question as inadmissible. Not the same thing."
What still happens at the EPO is nothing short of white-collar crime and it's protected by media apathy, sometimes owing to bribes and blackmail (publishers that used to expose EPO corruption no longer wish to write about it, having been bullied by the "Mafia" which runs the Office). We'll do our best to secure availability and make all the information robust to censorship.
Shown below is a snapshot of tests, displayed in a terminal-based browser (GUI ones exist too). ⬆
