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Fediverse @lemmy.world
A_Chilean_Cyborg @feddit.cl

Lemmy,Mbin, piefed, what even are those?

First of all, how is called this category of programs, instance engine?

Second, why there are 3 different, basically inter-compatible projects out there, what are the benefits of each one over the others? and why does Lemmy prevail all of them.

*i will be using feddit as a umbrella term for all the reddit-like fediverse.

I don't have much of a technical Background to know how this things work under the hood, but I'm quite curious of where all of this is heading.

I see a lot of awesome features locked away in these other projects that would be just nice if it was standard to have them, like piefed's hashtag-like system that allows people to seek things by topic instead of going to a specific community hosted in a specific instance, it would instantly fix the fragmentation problem across feddit, lol.

How the future of feddit will be? will be all be using Lemmy or other specific project, or instances will use whatever project they like and they will be cross compatible enough that it won't be much of a deal what project is running underneath?

45 comments

  • Lemmy, piefed, and mbin are all similar pieces of software that run on a server.

    They are each capable of hosting a small social network website with a similar reddit-like format. They all also support the activitypub standard, which means that they can be linked together, so that when you go to one of those social media sites (lemmy.world for example) you can see any other site that they're "federated" with, even if that social media site is powered by a different software that supports activitypub (I'm on lemmy.world but I can see communities and posts from piefed.social)

    I generally call lemmy, mbin and piefed "fediverse platforms" because they're each a platform that you can make a fediverse account on, but that usage is a bit imperfect, since each individual site could also be described as a platform, and is where your account is actually hosted. You could be more specific and call them "fediverse/federated link aggregators" if you wanted to specifically refer to the ones with a similar format to reddit.

    These pieces of software are different because they're built in different ways (different languages and underlying structure), have different priorities, and as software projects are run in different ways with different leadership, all of which is how you get differences in features and implementation. Lemmy is the oldest of these similar platforms, and as such is the most established. In the open source world it's very easy and common to end up with a lot of fragmented similar projects. Its both a blessing and a curse.

    There isn't perfect language for all these things because in the grand scheme of things, it's a rather new way for social media platforms to work, so the language around how to describe or refer to these things hasn't really "settled"

  • We call them threadiverse or forumverse.

    They are very different.

    Currently Lemmy lacks lot features compared to PieFed and Mbin.

    • Mbin support mastodon, tag, change link to link's title, customization...sorry i don't know well Mbin but it is a good software :)
    • Piefed support tag, flair, multicommunity, temporary filters, i read the article, block downvote from people who aren't subcribed to community...
    • Lemmy was there before PieFed. So it was my first software they have lot apps, lot UI.

    Anyway, i recommend you testing them so you can get a better understanding on their pro and cons :)

    • Piefed also has this Mastodon-esque tendency to implement features that only work on their system and are not interoperable with the rest of the ActivityPub software. Which is the kind of thing that is only "nice" until they are a minority player, but could make them one of the most hated systems if they start getting significant users.

      • I don't think this is accurate for either of the two projects to be honest.

        PieFed made sure to make their API as close to Lemmy's as possible, and they created feeds so that it would be as easy as possible for Lemmy to integrate in the future.

        Vibes between the developers of the two platforms seems good enough.

        No need to make up drama where there is none.

    • Thanks for saying mbin is good software 👋😊

    • Development wise, how do you see piefed develop into the future?

      any chances of it just dying?

      • There is always a chance of open source projects dying off, but if there's an active user base who enjoy the software it will usually not die easy.

        Mbin is a good example of this. It started out as Kbin, which was a project dominated by one very active developer who made the whole thing on his own. Unfortunately he did not prioritize getting other people on board, and he then suffered what seems to have been pretty severe health problems. Last thing we heard from him was a picture from a hospital bed. I hope he's alright.

        Thankfully, as what he had made was open source, Kbin lives on in the form of Mbin. If you check my domain you'll see I'm still on a site called "kbin.earth" rather than mbin - this is why.

        PieFed's developer is better at taking other developers onboard. If you check out !piefed_meta@piefed.social you'll see monthly development updates. The head developer (Rimu) runs the show, but seven other people contributed last month alone.

        If Rimu decides to quit, other people can and will take over as long as there's an interest. PieFed has the added advantage here of being written in Python, which is a language many people know.

        So it should be pretty robust, all in all.

        As for the future, PieFed just now launched app support. I guess one thing to look out for is the emergence of alternative user interfaces.

        Developments are happening fast and the developers are quite creative. It's fun to follow. :)

  • The term I've heard is Threadiverse (i.e. Fediverse with threaded discussions), but that was coined before Threads launched so it's a little awkward now.

  • The whole point of federation and open protocols is that you aren't tied to any specific piece of software, or any single provider, or any single set of features. People can experiment and innovate and collaborate and expand to build new things on top without losing access or interfering with people who prefer the old methods. People or software that abuses the system on the other hand, can be blocked or defederated.

    A healthy software ecosystem should have many different pieces of software all written by different people with different goals, but all implementing most of the same things. Some will be more popular than others, and the popular ones might not agree with your own personal tastes, but that's just life. The point is that we (and software developers) all have the freedom to choose how we interact with this system without any formal rules or maintainer group deciding what is allowed and what isn't (except within their own software and/or instance).

    and they will be cross compatible enough that it won’t be much of a deal what project is running underneath?

    They are already cross-compatible enough, they are as cross-compatible as they need to be. It's not clear what more you could ask for. If you want them to all look and work exactly the same then what's the point of having different software at all? You're acting like the different features and choices are a downside when it is in fact a benefit. Pick the one you like the most and use it. If you like Piefed's hashtags, then use Piefed, it's great! There's nothing "locked away" in Piefed, everything in it is available to everybody, as it should be!

  • How the future of feddit will be?

    I don't know what it will be, but I hope that it becomes less about "instances" and servers and it becomes more a proper web of independent applications that share the social graph.

  • I don't have the time for a detailed response right now, but to keep things short: you've probably heard of the fediverse. The concept that lemmmy can talk to for example mastadon. That is done via ActivityPub. To allow seemless integration lemmy instances communicate with each other via ActivityPub. Now what would happen if someone designed a software that worked like lemmy and is capable of reading its ActivityPub communication. That is what Mbin and Piefed are. Of course, since their communication is designed to speak lemmys language, lemmy can understand them to.

    As for uniqe features, just because most things are the sane doesn't mean all things. Everything is still comunicated via ActivityPub, and lemmy could, if they so desired implement them. The Beauty of the fediverse is that compatanility can be inmplemented one sided.

    And finally, the reason lemmy is prevelent is because its the oldest. They are years older than the others. The downsides of lemmy are the slow development Speed and the political opinions of the devs. The upsides are that it is stable, and development, while slow, is consistent. Long term, it might end up getting dethroned by Piefed, but it is Impossible to tell now

    EDIT: I so.ehow mest up the spelling of ActivityPub once, and my phones auto completion just made me repeat the mistake every single tine. Fixed it now

  • The only cross compatibility you need is posts, comments, votes, we got that, anything extra they add on top of that or ui they come up with is exclusive to their platform. All that matters is that the content is shared, this way people get to customize and pick whatever suits them. Some get old reddit vibe, some ppl get reddit third pirty app vibe, some want to also see microblogs in one place, etc. I like having options, I grew up as everything became closed off and the options went from massive visual differences to numbers.

45 comments