OStatus
{{short description|Open microblogging protocol}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2019}}
{{Infobox networking protocol|title=OStatus|logo=Ostatus.png|purpose=Decentralized social networking|influenced=ActivityPub}}
OStatus is an open standard for decentralized social networking, allowing users on one service to send and receive status updates with users from another.{{cite web|url=http://www.computerworld.com/article/2519651/enterprise-applications/could-open-source-tools-make-facebook-the-next-aol-.html/|title=Could open source tools make Facebook the next AOL?|first=Joab|last=Jackson|website=computerworld.com|date=28 July 2010}} The standard describes how a suite of various standards, including Atom, Activity Streams, WebSub, Salmon, and WebFinger,{{cite web|url=https://www.blackweb20.com/2010/03/09/statusnet-cloud-service/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170519132205/https://www.blackweb20.com/2010/03/09/statusnet-cloud-service/|archive-date=19 May 2017|title=StatusNet Cloud Service Opens To The Public – Black Web}} can be used together, which enables different microblogging server implementations to communicate status updates between their users back-and-forth, in near real-time.
History
OStatus federation was first possible between servers running StatusNet, such as Status.net and Identi.ca,{{cite web|url=https://www.davehall.com.au/blog/dave/2010/02/20/group-redent-plugin-statusnet-identica|title=Group Redent Plugin for Status.net / Identi.ca – Dave Hall Consulting|website=www.davehall.com.au}} although Identi.ca later switched to pump.io.{{cite web|url=https://lwn.net/Articles/544347/|title=StatusNet, Identi.ca, and transitioning to pump.io [LWN.net]|website=lwn.net}} As of June 2013, a number of other microblogging applications and content management systems had announced that they intended to implement the standard.{{cite web|url=https://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/federatedsocialweb/wiki/Platforms|title=Platforms – Federated Social Web Incubator Group|website=www.w3.org}} That same month, it was announced StatusNet would be merged into the GNU social project along with Free Social, a similar application itself forked from StatusNet.
Following the first official release of GNU Social, a number of microblogging sites running StatusNet and Free Social began to transition to it to receive new updates to the software. But frustrations with the technology underpinning GNU Social and its complexity led a number of new server packages that aimed to be compatible with GNU Social using OStatus to shift focus to ActivityPub, including Mastodon,{{Cite web|url=https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/11205|title=Remove Salmon and PubSubHubbub by Gargron · Pull Request #11205 · tootsuite/mastodon|website=GitHub|language=en|access-date=2019-10-04}} Pleroma{{cite web|url=https://medium.com/we-distribute/blushy-crushy-fediverse-idol-a-chat-with-lain-about-pleroma-4ff578b99752|title=Blushy-Crushy Fediverse Idol: A Chat with Lain about Pleroma|first=Sean|last=Tilley|date=24 April 2018|website=medium.com}} and postActiv, a fork of GNU social.
Standards work
In January 2012, a W3C Community Group was opened to maintain and further develop the OStatus standard.[http://www.w3.org/community/ostatus/ OStatus Community Group] W3C However, this was eclipsed by the work of the W3C Federated Social Web Working Group, launched in July 2014.{{cite web|url=https://www.cnet.com/news/w3c-tries-building-social-networking-into-the-web/|title=Social networking built into the Web? W3C gives it a go|date=21 July 2014|website=cnet.com}} This working group focused on creating a newer standard, called ActivityPub, which expanded on the protocols and design used in pump.io, which has since been standardized as a successor to OStatus.{{cite web|url=https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/victory-for-libre-networks-activitypub-is-now-a-w3c-recommended-standard|title=Victory for libre networks: ActivityPub is now a W3C recommended standard — Free Software Foundation — working together for free software|website=www.fsf.org}}{{cite web|url=https://zenhack.net/2016/05/29/sandstorm-and-the-social-web.html|title=Sandstorm And The Social Web|website=zenhack.net|access-date=26 April 2017|archive-date=30 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030010607/https://zenhack.net/2016/05/29/sandstorm-and-the-social-web.html|url-status=dead}}
Projects using OStatus
= Current =
- GNU social (formerly StatusNet)
= Former =
- Friendica{{cite web|url=https://medium.com/we-distribute/got-zot-mike-macgirvin-45287601ff19|title=Got Zot — Mike Macgirvin|first=Sean|last=Tilley|date=10 October 2017|website=medium.com}}{{cite web|url=https://github.com/friendica/friendica/releases/tag/2024.12-1|title=Friendica 2024.12 released|author=tobiasd|date=1 January 2025|website=Github|quote=we dropped the support of OStatus (the predecessor of ActivityPub) after evaluating the amount of active servers/contacts that are still only using this protocol, and deprecated the fancybox addon}}
- Mastodon
- Pleroma
See also
{{Portal|Free and open-source software}}
- OpenMicroBlogging – older federated microblogging specification, to be superseded by OStatus.
- Comparison of software and protocols for distributed social networking
- Comparison of microblogging and similar services
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.w3.org/community/ostatus/wiki/Main_Page OStatus Wiki]
Category:Microblogging software