2023-06

2023-06-21 State of the Forge Federation: 2023 edition

Millions of Free Software developers forgot why it matters to own their tools.

They know, better than anyone, how to fix and improve them. But when they choose to collaborate only via the most popular proprietary software forges, they are denied the right to use their skills and cannot work with fellow developers who are banned because they reside in the wrong country .

They have been made to believe that the tools they use daily to craft their own software are out of reach. As if their software was a product that could be separated from the other software running the tests, allowing changes to be merged or bugs to be filed.

But software is a process, and whoever controls it ultimately decides what the developers can do and how they communicate.

Some Free Software developers chose to use different tools, such as email and DVCS without a web interface, to collaborate in a distributed way.

Many others decided to run their own Free Software forge and work in a decentralized way, improving their own tools and independently deciding who they work with. But even then, they are isolated instead of being federated with each other.

The ongoing forge federation effort is a simple proposition: online software forges must be able to communicate. It must be possible for developers to work together on the same software project regardless of the user interface they use.

Just as it is possible for someone to send an email using their preferred client knowing the person receiving it will be able to read it and reply even if they are in a completely different environment. This will help developers to move away from software forges they are forbidden to change and regain control of their tools.

Is forge federation ready to be used by developers around the world?

Not yet.

But the first Forgejo release with native federation implementation based on ForgeFed and F3 is expected next year.

As you read this “State of the Forge Federation”, you will get a high level view of what happened since June 2022 and where it is going. You will also realize that there is a lot of work ahead and this may motivate you to join the effort and help forge federation become part of the daily life of every developer.

Executive summary

Late 2022 Forgejo, a new forge with a focus on federation was created. Dozens of people contributed to its making and it is now used in production by ten of thousands of users at Codeberg, Disroot, etc.

This large and unforeseen undertaking diverted the energy of most contributors set to work on federation features and rendered most of the 2022 predictions obsolete.

Since 2021 the strategy to advance forge federation was to have standalone proxies (forgefriends and ForgeFlux) to create bridges between forges that do not know how to communicate with each other, until they come up with a native implementation using ForgeFed, ActivityPub, F3, etc.

Unfortunately for-profit companies never give priority to federation because it tends to lower vendor lock-in and the prospect of a native implementation was years away.

The apparition of Forgejo changed that timeline dramatically.

It is developed by a community under the umbrella of a non-profit organization dedicated to the interest of the general public and federation was a priority from the start. Instead of installing a standalone proxy (forgefriends or ForgeFlux), developers will be able to install a Forgejo instance to mirror entire projects from GitLab.com to Codeberg.org.

Or watch over a single issue from GitHub in the comfort of their preferred forge.

The ForgeFed ActivityPub extension made significant progress and the section about object capabilities is particularly noteworthy. Its reference implementation (Vervis) underwent an important refactor, switching to a networked actor model and a web app named Anvil was created to work with it.

The Friendly Forge Format came into existence with a draft specification and reference implementation for which a driver is developed in Forgejo.

It also spawned the creation of a Wikidata project on forges for the purpose of keeping a durable inventory of software forges characteristics.

It is striking how much of the landscape changed within the past year, both in terms of projects and people involved.

Through an unexpected series of events, the foundations on which forge federation is being built have shifted and there is reason to hope it was for the best.

By June 2024 it is expected that:

  • At least one forge software project ( https://forgejo.org ) will publish a stable release that implements federation

  • At least one public forge ( https://codeberg.org ) has federation enabled

  • The ForgeFed emerging standard defining the ActivityPub vocabulary for forges will have released its first draft and progress will be made on the Vervis reference implementation and Anvil, its web interface

  • The first stable release of the Friendly Forge Format, a open file format to represent software projects, will be published

  • The first beta release of the Starchart forge spider will be published

  • The number of people working on advancing forge federation will remain the same

  • Progress reports will be published on a monthly basis

2023-06-21 Naissance du Threadiverse

Je ne vous ferai pas l’affront de vous représenter ce qu’est le Fédiverse surtout qu’il y a maintenant une page Wikipedia bien remplie .

Ces derniers jours on assiste à une explosion du nombre d’utilisateurs de Lemmy et à l’apparition de Kbin.

Voyons un peu tout ça !

Le Threadiverse n’est qu’un pan du Fediverse

Bon Threadiverse n’est qu’un nom au final. Ce n’est pas isolé ni rien.

Lemmy

Lemmy est le service ayant attiré le plus de monde. Il faut dire que c’est le plus ancien sur le créneau, il est bien plus mature.

Ses devs ont des opinions politiques assez tranchées au point de faire peur à certains utilisateurs. Pourtant leur logiciel est libre et chacun est libre d’y contribuer/de l’installer toussa.

Kbin

Kbin lui est très similaire mais bien plus récent (à peine quelques mois). Il a une interface un peu plus moderne et moins austère mais fais sensiblement la même chose.

Prismo

Prismo je le cite pour la mémoire mais c’est le premier logiciel du genre du fédiverse mais il a été abandonné il y a fort longtemps. Mais bon on lui dit adieu.

Ces deux services permettent donc de poster des liens, créer des discussions.

Il est possible d’y répondre depuis un compte Mastodon, Pleroma, Misskey … Bref, c’est tout interconnecté (enfin à peu près).

Bon je ne vous cache pas qu’interagir depuis un autre logiciel n’est pas non plus 100% évident. Mais rien n’est définitif et il y a fort à parier que ça va se simplifier.