GoToSocial is a new ActivityPub social network server for the Fediverse

This service is still in Alpha release but is already deployable and usable, and federates with other Fediverse servers.

However, there is no “main” instance you go to join. The intention really is that you host your own instance for yourself and a few friends and family. To this end, it is designed to be very lightweight and will happily run on a Raspberry Pi or even a $5/pm VPS.

This is taking a very different approach from say Mastodon which has one main instance everyone could join, but then it sits with the issue that everyone joins there, and it becomes a bit “centralised”. GoToSocial has been designed as lightweight for self-hosting, and also has a Docker image installation, so it makes it really easy for (and encourages) most people to host their own instance.

It seems to also be focussed very much around privacy (defaults to unlisted posts) and permission controls (for example, you have an option to post to mutual-only where both people follow each other). Also, by hosting your own service you set the rules, and you are also your own admin. You can choose to turn off likes, replies, boosts, etc as well. Being your own admin also means you can easily adjust the post length as well.

It does conform to the Mastodon API so apparently some Mastodon clients will also work fine with it.

See github.com/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial/

  

jherazob,
@jherazob@beehaw.org avatar

If i were so inclined, is there recommended managed GoToSocial hosting somewhere?

GadgeteerZA,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

No they don’t have a central managed hosting, and that is the point they are making. It is intended for someone to host for their family and friends. There may be some hosting it at various places but no central list you can find them on. Those sites, of course, will federate with other Fediverse networks, but no-one will necessarily even know they are GoToSocial nodes.

jherazob,
@jherazob@beehaw.org avatar

Yeah, i was not necessarily looking for a hosting by the project devs, just seeing if there was some company offering managed hosting like masto.host and others do for Mastodon and so on, i have a general idea how much would it cost to have managed Mastodon and was curious about other Fedi options for this

Zoop,

That cute little mascot is just gosh darn precious!

leecalvin,

This isn’t new. I’ve been running my personal instance since last year using it.

GadgeteerZA,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

Let’s agree on newer. It is not even in stable release yet, and until this week I’d not even heard about it anywhere else.

esaru,

Beta and moreso Alpha are tags that indicate a software is not ready for use in production environment, because it is either not secure or stable enough. Otherwise it wouldn’t need to be tagged as Alpha or Beta.

GadgeteerZA,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

From their site: “It is already deployable and useable, and it federates cleanly with many other Fediverse servers (not yet all). However, many things are not yet implemented, and there are plenty of bugs! We foresee entering beta around the beginning of 2024.”. I would say it should be described more as beta by now from that description.

Gmail was in beta for many years whilst it was in production, and Meshtastic only has alpha and beta releases, with no “stable” release. I think some projects feel if they are still adding features it says in beta and never reall is in stable until they stop adding features. But yes they should actually iterate through alpha, beta, RC, stable. Not everyone does, though.

princessnorah,
@princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

If you go to the Meshtastic website, the Beta of the software is listed as Stable, with the Alpha branch considered the testing version: meshtastic.org/downloads/

GadgeteerZA,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

Yes, but it is a bit unusual for a “beta” to be the stable version, when there is a such a thing as “stable”. Beta is normally taken to be a testing version, between alpha and stable releases. But it shows we can’t just go on our own assumptions about what alpha and beta mean.

princessnorah,
@princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It entirely depends, but I don’t think “Stable” is necessarily synonymous with “Release” versions. You can have a “stable” version where it functions correctly and there’s no critical bugs that crash the program.

esaru,

I don’t get how a software can be in alpha or beta version and by the developers be called ready for production environments. It doesn’t make sense by itself. In some way it’s not an honest way of communication, telling us two contrary things at the same time.

Alpha versions are actually quite severe. It means that features can be removed or added breaking the whole system. It means not providing an upgrade path for database changes. It means new bugs will be introduced by new features. Beta normally means a feature freeze but still not considered stable enough for production, due to bugs and security issues. RC, a “release candidate” is almost ready but you give it a bit more of testing time to make sure no critical bugs are left. And after that you get the version that is safe for productive use.

They are far away from a productive version, but telling us to use their development version as such.

GadgeteerZA,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

Yes I think they’re meaning they’re still adding lots of new features possibly, but it is a bit confusing as I think of Alpha as raw and not production ready. Beta can be ready for testing with brand new features, and stable is usually production ready and all features already passed beta testing. I get it is for home use but still. Maybe they’re covering themselves legally, but then you can just say “use at your own risk”. It’s possible too they don’t have separate branches at all, and just add/update/fix the “alpha” version.

petrescatraian,

@GadgeteerZA it's not really that new, it's been around for as long as Mastodon got the first boost back in Autumn 2022 (at least that's when I first heard about it, something like that). There's plenty of other microblogging servers out there, as microblogging is overwhelmingly served via AP and not only. There's even a Nextcloud app for that.

Check out the list below and sort by Social network (micro):
fediverse.party/en/miscellaneo…

GadgeteerZA,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

Yes not “new” per se, but it is still in early Alpha release and mostly unknown to everyone. Nextcloud and most of the others have been around many years and have had iterative stable releases. I was actually on Mastodon since 2016 so GoToSocial is a lot newer at around 3 years. But yes point taken, “new” is not the best description.

petrescatraian,

@GadgeteerZA Oh, I see. Thanks for the extra info! 😁

TheRealCharlesEames,

So if I wanted to host my own mastodon for friends and family but found the installation process too difficult, does that make this the best route forward for me?

remington,
@remington@beehaw.org avatar

You could reach out for help if you were running into problems. AskBeehaw would be an example for inquires. Also, there’s nothing preventing anyone from asking for technical support at Beehaw’s technology community which has the largest viewership on Beehaw.

GadgeteerZA,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

They say it is less complex than Mastodon as well as lighter weight requirements. A Docker install is usually also easiest. So I’d say it is a better option to try for friends and family.

leecalvin,

Setting up an app in docker is the easiest option, even more than just simply installing the binary?

GadgeteerZA,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

Yes, as there is full control over what is exposed or mapped for the app including network ports, and future updates don’t get broken by inconsistent dependencies. I suppose if you run only one service on a machine and stick to standard ports for reverse proxying then maybe a binary install can be simpler. But if you want to install multiple apps ona server containers does become easier to manage and update.

mbirth,

Pretty much, I think. I have it running on a Raspberry Pi 4 with docker-compose:


<span style="color:#323232;">version: '3'
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">services:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">  gotosocial:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    image: superseriousbusiness/gotosocial:latest
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    restart: unless-stopped
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    networks:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      - traefik-public
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    environment:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      TZ: Europe/London
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      GTS_HOST: xyz.example.com
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      GTS_CONFIG_PATH: /gotosocial/storage/config.yaml
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      GTS_DB_TYPE: sqlite
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      GTS_DB_ADDRESS: /gotosocial/storage/sqlite.db
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      GTS_LETSENCRYPT_ENABLED: "false"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      GTS_LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL_ADDRESS: ""
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    volumes:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      - smb-gotosocial-data:/gotosocial/storage
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    labels:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      traefik.enable: "true"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      traefik.http.routers.gotosocial.rule: Host(`xyz.example.com`)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      traefik.http.routers.gotosocial.entrypoints: websecure
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      traefik.http.routers.gotosocial.tls: "true"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      traefik.http.routers.gotosocial.tls.certresolver: le
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      traefik.http.services.gotosocial.loadbalancer.server.port: "8080"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">volumes:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">  smb-gotosocial-data:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    driver_opts:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      type: "smb3"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      device: "//mynas/docker/gotosocial/data"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      # Use nobrl to mitigate SQLite3 byte range locking issue on CIFS/SMB mounts
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      o: "rw,nobrl,vers=3.1.1,addr=172.16.254.1,username=xxx,password=xxx,cache=loose,iocharset=utf8,noperm,hard"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">networks:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">  traefik-public:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    external: true
</span>
lemmyreader,

Following this conversation and here it was a pleasant surprise to see this pinned post from a GoToSocial developer 🙂

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/d6562d4d-c74b-45f4-a8ab-b0318394736b.png

victoitor,

I like them already!!

Death to capitalism!

briongloid,
@briongloid@aussie.zone avatar

Any platform that believes it should be their choice whether the user can opt-in to any part of the fediverse, is a big no from me.

FlashMobOfOne, (edited )
@FlashMobOfOne@beehaw.org avatar

LOL

Because giving people the option to opt-in to the platform that birthed the resurgence of Fascism worked out so well. I’m good with not hearing your weird uncle’s incoherent rants about chemtrails and lizard people, thanks.

Kichae,

There are no platforms on the Fediverse that do that. There are servers that are refusing and will refuse to communicate with other servers, and that’s their right. If you don’t like their policies, you can pick a different server.

Your power as a user is to select your administrators, by selecting whose server you want to log in to. You don’t get to decide whose content they mirror. If they don’t want to host content from Meta, or from Mastodon.social, or from anywhere else, they don’t have to, and you shouldn’t be able to force them to.

This isn’t a mainframe and client system. There’s no “fediverse” server out there that the different instances are gating. There’s just 10 thousand partial mirrors, each offering local access to that mirrored content.

If you want complete and total control over what content is being hosted where ever you’re logged in, host your own server. That’s your other option.

kalanggam,

There is no should or shouldn’t, they’ve always had and been entitled to that choice. People who develop and host those platforms can make whatever choice they want.

ActivityPub/the Fediverse is only a protocol. If you philosophically disagree with how a platform makes use of that protocol, then you can (theoretically) just use another platform.

lemmyreader,

I feel that that is not what their post was saying.I read it more like the possibility that Mark Zuckerberg would want to talk to the core developer of Mastodon and e.g. buy Mastodon.social, and then when GoToSocial would grow Zuck would want to talk with them as well.I’d be surprised if the GoToSocial software would have Meta Threads blocked by default in their source code.

hanrahan,
@hanrahan@slrpnk.net avatar

Maybe they can send the poop emoji in reply if Meta does reaches out?

BlueEther,
@BlueEther@no.lastname.nz avatar

Well the documentation is very nice and filled out.

I think I’ll spin up a test container for a project that my Mrs is starting on that I was going to put on wordpress with federation.

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