Project Gemini
geminiprotocol.net

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/24735701

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)

It is similar to the old gopher: text files, links, and images form a hypertext optimized for reading. Text is formatted like Markdown - but even simpler.

Clients display text, like an eBook, or images / media.

Servers can run on a PC or Raspberry Pi which needs half a Watt of power. No FAANG companies needed. No expert knowledge needed - not more difficult than running a file sharing client.

I think it is the right thing for defense of democracy and sharing your voice in the digital realm.

Edit: If you see comments here which kinda miss the point, appeal to emotions, have faulty logic, or depart from entirely incorrect assumptions: Please keep in mind that big US tech companies can’t say “that’s bad, how will we shovel money with this?”. Please use your critical thinking skills - they are much needed here!

      • atro_city@fedia.io
        21·
        20 hours ago

        What do you mean? The fediverse is an alternative decentralized internet for sharing text and media. How is that different from The Gemini Protocol? The fediverse is already working and doing the job well. Is there really a need to promote yet another one and dilute the fediverse?

        • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.orgOPEnglish
          3·
          9 hours ago

          Gemini is more like personal web sites and blogs - with very little setup effort, almost no maintenance, and light on both extra features and resource use.

          It is calmer and a different style of writing and reading. More deliberate if you want so. Pages read like an eBook.

          Also, open source Internet technologies are not exclusive. It is not either/either. There is no need to view everything as competition. Especially since Gemini is tiny compared with popular social media sites like Reddit. Gemini might have ten thousand active users - but high-quality content. It attracts a certain frugal breed of people.

          Also, one can learn by looking at and trying other things, and see things one is used to with new eyes.

          Here one idea what can possibly be done better (adressing an addictive element of Mastodon, the “endless feed”, which it has inherited from Twitter I guess):

          https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/tilde.town/~dzwdz/b/feeds.gmi

  • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.orgOPEnglish
    4·
    9 hours ago

    This is a young (and still small) project of open source programmers and a user community which believe that for some purposes, a lot of useless and annoying features and bloat can be omitted from the “Modern Web” - and the result can still be much more user-friendly and useful for open discussion and exchange of ideas than what we have today with Facebook and X.

    The design comes from the belief that a more frugal use of resources is better, if focused on what is the real core goal - transporting text, ideas, and media over the network.

    Turns out it works nicely for some people!

    It is also less addictive than social media such as Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit with endless feed and “like” buttons.

    (Edit)

    So, what is it useful for?

    • Microblogs
    • keeping in touch with friends
    • Personal Blogs and long form texts
    • sharing ideas
    • political discussion, for example ecological questions
    • Sharing poetry, photos, images, music, art, other media, data and documents
    • organizing and sharing file data
    • sharing source code like tar archives and zipped version control repositories

    What is this not useful for?

    • interactive web content like e.g. shopping sites or online banking
    • forums
    • marketing material
    • AI slop
    • user tracking
    • surveillance

    (as you see, it is not claimed to be good for everything, and you can also expect some weird argumentation and trolling in discussions around it!)

    See also discussion in the Linux channel:

    https://feddit.org/post/24780758