this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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Fediverse

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A community dedicated to fediverse news and discussion.

Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".

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How do the different federated software interact with each other? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hello everyone.
I am relatively new here on Lemmy, and the Fediverse, and there is still a lot I am trying to learn.
I think I understand the general theory of how the different instances and communities work here on Lemmy, but I'm struggling to understand how the different federated software interacts with each other.
For example, I understand that it is possible to follow a community, commenting on its posts, or a user subscribed to Lemmy even from Mastodon. Similarly, it is possible to follow an author on Write.as, again through Mastodon.
What I wanted to understand is what software in the Fediverse interacts with each other, how, and how do you get them to interact.
I hope someone can help me better understand how things work, as I find the idea of the Fediverse absolutely fascinating, a real breath of fresh air in the modern Internet landscape.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

All platforms on the fediverse interact because they are part of the same protocol, ActivityPub. (While there are more federated and decentralised protocols, "Fediverse" refers to ActivityPub based social network)

Other federated and/or decentralised platforms have other protocols, for example Diaspora* which has its own protocol, also supported by Hubzilla (which main protocol is Zot and also supports AP), Friendica (also AP and Ostatus) and SocialHome. Or Ostatus (GNU Social, Pleroma (also AP), and Matrix (Matrix)

A social media can interact with other social media that share the same protocol.

so Friendica can interact with Diaspora, Lemmy and GNU social, because it supports Diapora*, AP and OStatus, but the other three, being mono-protocol cannot interact with each other.