Chris TrottierMay 30, 2023
What is the Fediverse?

The clue is in the name! It's a portmanteau of "Federated Universe".

It's not a platform nor is it an ecosystem, it's an entire universe of stuff!

Now think about what's in our literal universe: galaxies, black holes, comets, cosmic dust, planets, an unfathomable amount of stuff.

This is not unlike the Fediverse which also has lots of stuff 🌌

#LearnFediverse
Show threadChris TrottierMay 30, 2023
But what do we mean by "federation"? Before I go further, let me talk about my favourite science fiction: Star Trek!

In the 1960s, Star Trek introduced an interesting idea. It was called the United Federation of Planets (UFoP).

The idea was that a whole lot of planets came together to build an organization greater than themselves.

Humanity got together with other alien species to cooperate. Rather than going to war, we humans created diplomatic ties with Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites to build something greater than ourselves.

Seeing the power of cooperation, even more alien species joined the United Federation of Planets, pooling resources together, to build prosperity.

This is not so different from the Fediverse. In fact, the fictional UFoP works a lot the Fediverse!

#LearnFediverse
Show threadChris TrottierMay 30, 2023
The fictional United Federation of Planets works because they're a network of diplomatically connected to planets.

In Star Trek, there are hundreds of planets that make the sum of the Federation. What's core to making the organization work isn't military. It is communication.

Check out this map of Star Trek's fictional Federation.

#LearnFediverse
Show threadChris TrottierMay 30, 2023
Like Star Trek's fictional Federation, the Fediverse has "planets". But we have another term for this.

We call them nodes.

Each node communicates and cooperates to build something greater than the sum of its parts.

When one node cooperates with another, and there's a tacit agreement with other nodes that they will continue to talk to each other, this is called federation.

#LearnFediverse
Show threadChris TrottierMay 30, 2023
Interestingly, the concept of a Fediverse is as old as Star Trek itself. It's not a new idea. Just like Star Trek, the idea started in the 1960s.

In the 1960s, United States Department of Defense launched Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET).

ARPANET was a network of federated nodes that communicate with each other over vast distances.

Amusingly, in early memoranda, ARPANET was described as the "Intergalactic Computer Network".

The idea was simple. If you have three computers, rather than having three separate sets of commands, have one set of commands that would enable conversation across the three computers.

And as more computers join the network, each which would have access to the same set of commands, the usefulness of the shared connectivity would increase.

Here's an early map of what ARPANET looked like.

#LearnFediverse
Show threadAnaMay 30, 2023
@atomicpoet oh wow this is an amazing history!! Thank you!
Show threadJon (now at neuromatch.social)
@anatecture there's a lot more history of Mastodon's early days, including adopting ActivityPub, in https://privacy.thenexus.today/mastodon-a-partial-history/
Mastodon: a partial history (DRAFT)

I'm flashing!

The Nexus Of Privacy
May 30, 2023 at 10:04pmWeb