Diaspora/Website

Free Software is about individuality, transparency, creativity, and destiny. It is about having an idea, and making it reality. diaspora* was founded to fulfill a passion for fun, and to make the internet a better place. Free Software is what enables us to change the world for ourselves, and lets our friends across the web benefit from our exploration.

Free Software communities are amazing things. At diaspora*, we believe that people should be valued for what they do. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an elite coder or have never contributed to a project before. Contributing to diaspora* means that you get to work on hard problems, with a focus on solutions that work for users.

This is why if you contribute something meaningful to diaspora*, we will give you core commit access. We are in this together, and we want to give excited people the chance to make huge changes.

We all make diaspora*. We might not know you just yet, but we’d love to meet you and find how you can fit into the team that’s building the future of the web. We all have the potential to change the world, given the right opportunity.

Contributing to diaspora* comes in all different shapes and sizes. Whether you’re a user helping us find bugs, providing feedback on our mailing lists, or contributing code or design, we need you.

Clone the repository and poke around: %{clone_code}

We’ve got a large community ready to help you get started. We suggest you check out our %{get_started_guide_link}, talk to us on our %{discourse_link} and come and meet us in the %{irc_link}.

Our project makes use of Code Triage, a volunteer service where users and developers can work together to tackle bugs in our %{github_link}.

Squashing small bugs helps everyone, and it can give a newcomer a better working knowledge of how parts of diaspora* works.

Our project is run entirely by community volunteers. We use a tool called Discourse to engage in conversations with our contributors about ideas and proposals.

Persuade your friends and family to join diaspora* by organizing your own real-life diaspora* %{meetup_link} in your own community.

Answer users’ questions on our %{irc_channel_link} or answer users’ questions on diaspora* itself by following the <span class="click">#help</span>, <span class="click">#question</span> and <span class="click">#feedback</span> hashtags.

Now you don’t have to settle for having your data on someone else’s server. Since diaspora* is completely free software, we’re constantly making it easier for individuals to %{host_pod_link}.

Instead of everyone’s data being held on huge central servers owned by a large organization, diaspora* exists on independently run servers (“pods”) all over the world. You choose which pod to register with, and you can then connect seamlessly with the diaspora* community worldwide.

You can be whoever you want to be in diaspora*. Unlike some networks, you don’t have to use your real identity. You can interact with people in whatever way you choose. The only limit is your imagination. diaspora* is also Free Software, giving you liberty over how you use it.

In diaspora* you own your data. You don’t sign over rights to a corporation or other interest who could use it. In addition, you choose who sees what you share, using Aspects. With diaspora*, your friends, your habits, and your content is your business ... not ours!

Once you’ve decided which pod is right for you, based on the ratings and information at %{poduptime} and maybe recommendations from people you trust, sign up there and create a profile with as much or as little personal information as you like. You are in control about how much you share.

diaspora* pioneered the concept of aspects, which means you can organise your contacts according to their role in your life. This means you can share something just with family members or work colleagues, knowing that no one you don’t want to will be able to see what you post.

Hashtags give you the freedom to label and follow your interests with ease. You can catch people’s attention by @mentioning them. Reshare posts you love so others can enjoy and comment on them too. And show your love for other people’s work by ♥ing it.

Use diaspora* as your home base to post to your profiles on other major social services. This way your friends will still be able to keep in touch with what you’re up to, even if they’re not yet on diaspora*. diaspora* currently supports cross-posting to your Twitter, Tumblr, and WordPress accounts, with more to come.