Re: Introductions (was Re: First 2023 SWICG meeting call on Fri May 19)

Nice. I updated mine (https://social.mat.tl/@mattl) to say co-creator
and mention you and Mikael. I’ll ping Deb and Don and ask if they want
to be listed. I’ll also reach out and see if someone will update
gnu.org/s/social 

On May 17, 2023, Evan Prodromou <evan@prodromou.name> wrote:
> Awesome, thanks for that!
>
> I updated my Mastodon bio to "co-creator of GNU social" and will use
> that phrasing from now on.
>
> Evan
> On May 17, 2023 20:53, "Dr. Matt Lee" <mattl@hey.com> wrote:
> > Not on the list so please copy this to the list if it doesn’t come
> > through.
> >
> > My timeline from memory is roughly this:
> >
> > - April 2009 Libre.fm is started via a post on identica
> >
> > - Later in 2009 the idea of social networking features are being
> > added to GNU FM (by now we’d started calling the project under a
> > different name) and I’m uncomfortable with it as I don’t want to be
> > a silo.
> >
> > - various prototypes are made at the FSF, internally at first and
> > later looping in interns (Sean, Ian) and friends who hung around the
> > FSF. At this point the FSF staff have a fairly active darts league
> > and we were making GNU Social to keep track of it.
> >
> > - One of these people was Craig Andrews who suggested we should make
> > plug-ins for StatusNet instead. Our goal was to replace Facebook,
> > not Twitter.
> >
> > - Craig assigned his copyright over to the FSF and makes a commit.
> > Now StatusNet is partly FSF owned and GNU Social is now a set of
> > plugins for StatusNet.
> >
> > - Rhea Myers and I have our company, FooCorp and we’re looking at
> > making a version of GNU Social like we have Libre.fm. It’s called
> > daisycha.in but it never goes anywhere. At this point I start using
> > the name GNU social (lowercase) to describe the new project, which
> > is basically StatusNet plus plugins but at some point we distributed
> > a copy of StatusNet with the project. I also don’t remember how well
> > the plug-ins work.
> >
> > - We have a mailing list called social-discuss@gnu.org — Diaspora
> > project is also using it in early stages.
> >
> > - At this point it’s 2010 we have new interns at the FSF. We have an
> > event at the FSF with Evan, Blaine Cook and the various FSF
> > staff/interns/friends. We get a logo and some mock-ups based on
> > Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Evan/StatusNet Inc kindly funds my
> > travel to OSCON. This becomes the first IndieWeb event.
> >
> > - In 2012 I leave the FSF and there is some attempt by another GNU
> > developer to take over the name. Stallman okayed it but didn’t know
> > there was paperwork for GNU social copyright assignments so this is
> > quickly reverted and the developer makes something else.
> >
> > - In 2013 the merger has happened with FreeSocial (aka Free&Social),
> > StatusNet (the project) and GNU Social under the name GNU social
> > happens. I know this because
> > <https://www.gnu.org/software/social/merge.html> talks about it. Wow
> > the last decade has gone fast. 
> >
> > After around 2012 I have no more involvement in GNU social and
> > little involvement in GNU aside from occasional moments. Nowadays I
> > have no contact with the FSF or GNU. 
> >
> > So I’d say GNU social has arguably six founders. Myself, the GNU FM
> > developers, Deborah Nicholson(ex FSF), Donald Robertson (Ex FSF),
> > Evan, Mikael (Free Social). 
> >
> > Of all these people, Evan wrote most of the code. Stevie DuBois did
> > the logo. I changed the case of the project name. I might have done
> > other stuff ;-) A bunch of very talented people gave up a lot of
> > their time and energy at a time when none of this stuff was seen as
> > especially cool to the wider world. Everyone should be commended for
> > that. 
> >
> > All of this was a long time ago now and this is all from memory so
> > please let me know just how much I got wrong. 
> >
> > As I say elsewhere I helped start the Fediverse now my interests are
> > painting toy soldiers and making monkey movies. 
> >
> > Best,
> > matt
> >
> >
>