NGI Zero Core grant for (streams) & Hubzilla

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 22:08:11 +0000 from Bunny of Doom

Bill Statler wrote the following post Thu, 02 Jan 2025 22:08:10 +0000

NGI Zero Core grant for (streams) & Hubzilla
Threadiverse Reproducible Deployment

Fediverse is more than short form microblogging. The ActivityPub protocol connects all kinds of software for various communication needs. Some of those are concentrated on long blogs and threaded discussion forums. A common understanding of conversations in ActivityPub and their secure and safe-from-spam implementation is being developed in several fediverse projects. This project focuses on stable and documented automated deployment for two of them - Hubzilla and Streams, including interoperability tests. This will support threadiverse standardization efforts, and help to bring features like group photoalbums and full channel portability between instances.

That's all that I know about it.

@billstatler@forum.statler.ws

chavasaurus

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:22:51 +0000 from nómada

The page mentions this project is "run by" node9.org (presumably the applicant and recipient). Looking forward to seeing what results from this effort.

Bill Statler

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 01:18:13 +0000 from Bunny of Doom

This is exactly what I've been wondering about. Sounds like node9.org got a grant specifically for "stable and documented automated deployment". Which is nice, but does any of that flow back to the creators and maintainers of the software? Oh well, I hope the deployment tools they develop will become openly available.

I see that node9.org is upgrading from a Raspberry Pi 4 to a Raspberry Pi 5.

lotfi

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 08:04:30 +0000 from Cirtensis

Perhaps @michal@biophilicresearch.net can tell us more.

Jupiter Rowland's (streams) outlet

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 10:18:50 +0000 from Streams at els Mussols

Makes me wonder what Mike will do with that grant. Or (streams) in general which is not a project, and which has no officially active devs.

Anyway, I hope Forte will be able to profit from it, too.

Michal Klodner

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 11:29:16 +0000 from Biophilic Research Network

This major Rpi5 upgrade is not part of the project

Actually, there are no money for hardware in it and all hardware needed for testing is donated by node9.

It is not very large funding, it is at the smallest level NLNet is giving and it is project and task oriented, so this has certain proposal what would be developed which was several months in evaluation and was accepted as such, not really possible to change to completely different thing or somebody be paid for what have not been done in the project.

They funded Hubzilla already and maybe do still, it depends on application any developers submit. The good news is, they regognize ActivityPub FEPs of Streams and Hubzilla as worth it and they aim for continuous support of projects.

This one is about deployment in reproducible environment using declarative packaging of NixOS. Providers should be able to deploy instances from scripts in Gitlab repo for example using automated CI/CD pipeline. It was meant for hosters as part of Fediversity programme. That would include documentation of what is supported and interoperability testing of some communication scenarios and flows.

Bill Statler

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 18:20:18 +0000 from Bunny of Doom

@michal@biophilicresearch.net I hope I didn't cause any offense with my comments -- if so, I apologize.

The NLNet article did not clearly explain the grant -- or at least, it wasn't clear to me. It left me confused about who was receiving the money, and for what purpose. Thank you for the explanation. It sounds like a very useful project.

I did not mean to imply that you were using the grant for the hardware upgrade. I just thought it was amazing that you have been able to run all your services on a Raspberry Pi 4.

Anyway, congratulations on the grant!

The good news is, they regognize ActivityPub FEPs of Streams and Hubzilla as worth it and they aim for continuous support of projects.

Yes, that is very good news.

Bill Statler

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 18:24:31 +0000 from Bunny of Doom

Here is what caused the most confusion for me: