Title: Implementing Federated Social Networking: Report from the Trenches

Authors: Gabriel Dos Santos Silva:University of Brasilia; Paulo Meirelles:LOSS Competence Center, University of San Paulo; Larissa Reis:Colivre; Antonio Terceiro:Colivre; Fabio Kon:FLOSS Competence Center, University of San Paulo

Abstract: The federation of social networks aims at integrating users by means of a decentralized structure, enabling the interoperability among multiple social networks in a transparent way. Despite a few isolated initiatives in federating open social networks, there is no adoption of any standard, which hinders the emergence of new, effective federated systems. To understand the difficulties in the development and standardization of federated services, we have conducted research on existing specifications and implementations of interoperability among social networks. We have developed a federation proof of concept within the Noosfero platform, implementing a subset of the Diaspora protocol to federate users and public content, in addition to complementary specifications, such as Salmon and WebFinger. In this work, we introduce our results to federate Noosfero with Diaspora networks, pointing the required steps before further development. We aim to implement the Diaspora protocol within Noosfero, finishing its specification and improving its documentation, encouraging more projects to adopt this protocol.

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