Hallå KittehOct 4, 2017
@alda The OStatus community was built through a decade of organic growth, and many people feel very attached to it.

Then a newcomer comes in. This has happened before, and generally people are really happy to see a new implementation, like what happened with Friendica and the original statements from the Diaspora team, even back in the day when Google was creating Buzz, people generally saw this as adding to the family, and gaining recognition until Google as usual went and killed it.

Mastodon was different. Instead of being humble and saying "I'm creating an implementation to join the OStatus network", this author said "I'm creating a Mastodon network and btw you can talk to GS too. Here, look how many users my Mastodon network has already!".
Show threadHallå Kitteh
@alda But in the end it's just another implementation, and you can ignore the arrogance of the lead developer as long as the software is good.

But it kept twisting and even breaking the protocol. Not implementing this thing, adding this incompatible thing, and worst of all, adding functionality that didn't degrade gracefully with the existing base, making it look like the rest of the network was breaking things. And the lead developer is still marketing it as the Mastodon network, and look at these other poor implementations, they're behind the times.

Still, it did bring people to the network, and generally GS people are happy about that, even though the subculture on many Masto instances may be very different from the subculture on some GS instances. And it's not the fault of the newcomers what the software looks like through which they happened to discover the network.
Oct 5, 2017 at 12:03amWeb
Show threadHallå KittehOct 5, 2017
@alda So now ActivityPub comes along. The relation between the OStatus community and ActivityPub is complex already:

- identi.ca going to pump.io broke the old OStatus network in two, and many users left, never to come back to either network.
- pump.io has new features, but doesn't support everything that OStatus could do.
- The death, from an OStatus perspective, of identi.ca did create an exodus to other instances and helped contribute to the push that made the quitter.* instances blossom.
- Evan, who created OStatus, is also the creator of pump.io and the founder of the working group that created ActivityPub.
Welcome - Identi.ca

Show threadHallå KittehOct 5, 2017
@alda When Mastodon starts looking at ActivityPub, depending on where people stand on Mastodon and on ActivityPub, there's a whole range of reactions:

- People who like AP and see it as the successor of OStatus were worried when Gargron was given influence over a new protocol. What would he do to it this time?
- The same people also worry that Mastodon will break the AP protocol, like it did OStatus. It already does, Follow activities are not handled in accordance with the spec.
- People who didn't like the newcomer implementation and didn't like the newcomer users just figure good riddance and hope Mastodon defederates from OStatus now.
- People who felt used by someone barging in on an existing network, profiting from the existing base without proper recognition, see it as confirmation that Mastodon was never about the OStatus community and now it's moving on to pillage the next one.
- People who welcomed the new users and the larger community are sad to see it split once again.
- People who want ActivityPub to be the great equalizer that joins the fragmented networks of OStatus, pump.io and perhaps even Diaspora, are happy that someone is at the forefront, seeding the new protocol. But at the same time they might worry that this means Mastodon will eventually turn off OStatus support and OStatus implementations won't follow, leading to Yet Another Incompatible Network.
pump.io

Show threadHallå KittehOct 5, 2017
@alda So, as you see (although you may not, as your instance is silencing mine), it's not as simple as "But they hated us, why do they hate to see us leave?".
Show threadplatanoOct 5, 2017
@clacke @alda Laconica/Identica/Pumpio has ever been a thing? I read somewhere that it's like 20k users. Now it doesn't seem to even properly work. Diaspora is said to have 1 or 2 M users (?). It'd be great there was a protocol to speak each other, though, and money to support the implementation.
Show threadHallå KittehOct 6, 2017
@platano @alda laconi.ca was definitely a thing. That's where OStatus comes from. Laconica became StatusNet became GNU Social. Identi.ca was the "flagship" instance, for good and for bad.

Many people didn't stay after the #pumpocalypse. identi.ca itself had 20000 users when it started as a pump.io server, and there were some people who had already registered on Evan's other servers at the time, but I think the number of active pump.io users has always been far below 100000, perhaps even always below 20000.

But killing the flagship was probably a good thing. I don't think the quitters and the rowdy bunch would have happened the way they did if identi.ca would have still been around.

Laconi
Show threadStephen Michael KellatOct 6, 2017
@clacke We're losing the oral history enough that we'll need a Call For Papers about the times before #pumpocalypse to record the tales.
social.heldscal.la

Show threadplatanoOct 6, 2017
@clacke @platano @alda Oh yeah, of course, I didn't mean technically, which I know it created all that, but in terms of popular success. Thanks for the info though. Btw, anybody knows how many GNUsoccers/postActivers we are? I can only see the GS nodes here https://fediverse.kranglabs.com/
Fediverse.org | A GNU Social map & knowledge-base

The Fediverse.org an is attemp to map all public nodes that are part of the GNU Social Fediverse as a way to contribute to the grow of the community, by offering a neutral starting point to newcommers, while being a knowledge-base for admins & users.

Show threadHallå KittehOct 7, 2017
@platano @alda When you said laconi.ca/identi.ca/pump.io, it left the question a bit unclear if you meant after the transition or in total. The 20000 figure suggested to me that you meant the pump.io network. And compared to OStatus, that was never "a thing".
Show threadplatanoOct 7, 2017
@clacke Yep, you're right. I put it that way because I've got no idea how many users did have Laconica/Identica before the jump, so I wanted to blur my ignorance a bit. :-)