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Diaspora developer code released

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16 September 2010

In a few short weeks in May of this year, and during a period when problems with personal privacy on Facebook were receiving a lot of media attention, a group of New York University computer science majors launched fundraising for a project on Kickstarter.com. Their goal was to finance start-up development of an open-source web application called Diaspora that will decentralize social networking.

Diaspora LogoRather than all "friends" in a social network storing their information, photos, etc. on a huge server controlled by companies like Facebook and MySpace (who then mine our data, and "monetize" it, and who also claim rather broad license to use our content), Diaspora users will connect via a web of smaller servers that are either controlled by a user directly, or are provided as a hosting service by third parties. Diaspora will then utilize push technology so that friends with accounts on different servers will receive updates from each other. (Diaspora servers will be known as "seeds" in keeping with the Diaspora logo of a mature dandelion dispersing its seeds.)

The idea caught on so quickly that the NYU students' dream of raising $10,000 US between the April 24 announcement and the June 1 fundraising cut-off was exceeded beyond anyone's expectations. They hit the $10,000 mark in the first 12 days, and by June 1 had raised $200,641.84 from 6,479 backers. To date, it was the most successful Kickstarter campaign ever. The students moved out to the San Francisco area to work with supporting organizations and individuals who are contributing infrastructure, expert advice, and project management support.

Yesterday, the open source code for Diaspora was released and OS developers invited to participate. The project uses a git server for version control, and Google groups have been set up for general discussions and for developers.

 

The user-facing alpha release is due to drop some time in October.

 

Whether the Diaspora project will catch on with users — in the face of the convenience, popularity and external-site integration offered by Facebook — is an unknown as of now. It certainly has got its backers, and developers, and the media interested. "More will be revealed!"

 

NOTE: Adept Digital Evolution made a small financial contribution on Diaspora's Kickstarter page. We are strong advocates of the project, hope to see it succeed, and therefore make no claim of impartiality when writing about it!