

GNU Social - diaspora already has a clone that's usable and free software - omouse
http://www.gnu.org/software/social/

======
mortenjorck
I'm sorry, but if Diaspora came out with something that looked like this, I'd
lose any faith I had in their chance of success:
[http://www.gnu.org/software/social/design-
mockups/gnusocial....](http://www.gnu.org/software/social/design-
mockups/gnusocial.html)

There's no imagination here. It's just blindly following the leader, just like
the legions of Linux desktops that have used a Win95 start menu for the past
15 years.

I apologize if this comes across as unduly harsh, but it's mostly that I'm
disappointed with the waste of talent. If the GNU Social team can build a
working product, the people behind it are obviously capable of good things --
so why are they just making more of the same?

~~~
samratjp
Don't lose faith - Diaspora looks pretty enough
<http://www.joindiaspora.com/2010/07/01/one-month-in.html>

(As a side note, the GNU profile example using Sunny in Philadelphia crew is >
funny than the Diaspora profile e.g. :)

~~~
angusgr
I don't think the criticism was for prettiness, but just for aping existing
social network look, feel and functionality.

Which the FAQ says up-front is one of their aims: _By default, we think it'll
ship with a plugin to offer functionality that looks like the current popular
social network sites, but plugins for other free software applications are
expected._ [1]

For my 2c, Diaspora looks even more like Facebook in most of the UI design
details.

I actually don't know if that's going to be an important factor in determining
if either platform becomes popular, though. Creating a decentralised social
networking service will be difficult. Doing it while also reinventing social
networking's user experience is an order of magnitude more difficult, although
if they succeed then that's a compelling reason for people to migrate.

[1] <http://www.gnu.org/software/social/faq.html>

------
stoney
I don't think the average non-techie user is going to get very far past:

 _You will need PHP5 (including the OpenID, gd and curl libraries) plus MySQL
5 or later. Apache 2 or later, or lighttpd are supported as web servers._

I guess the project is still in the very early stages, so it's probably a bit
unfair to criticise them for that at the moment. Hopefully someone (or many
people) will offer hosted versions.

~~~
angusgr
_Hopefully someone (or many people) will offer hosted versions._

I think this is the thing. I also like the idea of techy types (like us) being
able to host our own servers for small groups of our less techy friends.

~~~
mattl
Exactly this.

------
kentnl
I know its trolling to say "Eww, PHP", but every time these days I see yet
another project that runs on it, a little part of me dies inside. :(

~~~
martey
It wouldn't be trolling if you actually explained why you thought PHP was not
appropriate for this project. The developers already covered the reasons why
they are using it in the FAQ - <http://www.gnu.org/software/social/faq.html> :

 _Why are you using PHP? Ruby/Python/Perl/A GUI in Visual Basic would be
better!_

 _Better for who? Look at the success of phpBB and Wordpress -- PHP is pretty
much everywhere, and while maybe your favourite language is more elegant, PHP
is largely ubiquitous._

~~~
lallysingh
PHP doesn't do enough to encourage building maintainable software. The vast
majority of code I've seen "in the wild" grows from a thin, simple layer of
logic & SQL queries into an insatiable maintenance monster.

Note: I'm holding back a lot of language nerd rage, so I'm keeping this post
very short.

~~~
AlexMuir
So use a framework. Php's problem is that it doesn't come with an structure.
The plus is that you can use any framework that works for you. I use
<http://www.yiiframework.com> and it has shaved 70% off my dev time.

------
dhess
It was announced a few months ago, but I only recently found out about Tonika
(via wmf's blog):

<http://5ttt.org/>

It's not directly comparable to Diaspora or GNU Social, but to me it's much
more interesting than either: a distributed, secure framework for building an
ecosystem of HTTP-based social networking services, rather than simply a free
software "clone" of Facebook.

