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Comment by stesch | Hacker News Reader

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stesch·

What I don't understand: Why do they promote the software instead of the protocols?

News and e-mail had different server software and clients and were both used around the world.

Mastodon uses standard protocols, too.

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People use software, the value add Mastodon has over GnuSocial is that it's software that advertises itself to users on its own merits. (Well that and a moderation policy that's stricter than Twitter's, supposedly.)

GNU social was never supposed to be a brand seen by end users. The idea was “take our software, make your own network”

Yeah, but I'd like to use software that isn't written in PHP or Ruby (for a variety of reasons, some valid, and some not). If the protocol was better documented, there might be more choice.

There is pleroma which is written in Python and functions with the mastodon web interface natively .

Pleroma is written in Elixir

https://blog.soykaf.com/post/what-is-pleroma/#less-moving-pa...

I probably remembered wrong... still not Ruby or php!

The protocol is pretty well documented and even has a tutorial section: https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub

Either the techbro journalists dont understand that, or they do and know their readers wont understand or care.

Most Mastodon articles fail to even explain that its a server software anyone can run and talk about mastodon.social like that is the whole thing.

Because protocols need implementations to be appreciated.

They still are.

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