4 (c) Free Software Foundation, Inc
7 This is the README file for GNU social, the free
8 software social networking platform. It includes
9 general information about the software and the
12 Some other files to review:
14 - INSTALL: instructions on how to install the software.
15 - UPGRADE: upgrading from earlier versions
16 - CONFIGURE: configuration options in gruesome detail.
17 - PLUGINS.txt: how to install and configure plugins.
18 - EVENTS.txt: events supported by the plugin system
19 - COPYING: full text of the software license
21 Information on using GNU social can be found in
22 the "doc" subdirectory or in the "help" section
23 on-line, or you can catch us on IRC in #social on
28 GNU social is a free social networking
29 platform. It helps people in a community, company
30 or group to exchange short status updates, do
31 polls, announce events, or other social activities
32 (and you can add more!). Users can choose which
33 people to "follow" and receive only their friends'
34 or colleagues' status messages. It provides a
35 similar service to sites like Twitter, Google+ or
36 Facebook, but is much more awesome.
38 With a little work, status messages can be sent to
39 mobile phones, instant messenger programs (using
40 XMPP), and specially-designed desktop clients that
41 support the Twitter API.
43 GNU social supports an open standard called
44 OStatus <https://www.w3.org/community/ostatus/> that lets users in
45 different networks follow each other. It enables a
46 distributed social network spread all across the
49 GNU social was originally developed as "StatusNet" by
50 StatusNet, Inc. with Evan Prodromou as lead developer.
52 It is shared with you in hope that you too make an
53 service available to your users. To learn more,
54 please see the Open Software Service Definition
55 1.1: <http://www.opendefinition.org/ossd>
59 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
60 it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as
61 published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the
62 License, or (at your option) any later version.
64 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
65 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
66 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
67 Affero General Public License for more details.
69 You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public
70 License along with this program, in the file "COPYING". If not, see
71 <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
73 IMPORTANT NOTE: The GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) has
74 *different requirements* from the "regular" GPL. In particular, if
75 you make modifications to the GNU social source code on your server,
76 you *MUST MAKE AVAILABLE* the modified version of the source code
77 to your users under the same license. This is a legal requirement
78 of using the software, and if you do not wish to share your
79 modifications, *YOU MAY NOT INSTALL GNU SOCIAL*.
81 Documentation in the /doc-src/ directory is available under the
82 Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license, with attribution to
83 "GNU social". See <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/> for details.
85 CSS and images in the /theme/ directory are available under the
86 Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license, with attribution to
87 "GNU social". See <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/> for details.
89 Our understanding and intention is that if you add your own theme that
90 uses only CSS and images, those files are not subject to the copyleft
91 requirements of the Affero General Public License 3.0. See
92 <http://wordpress.org/news/2009/07/themes-are-gpl-too/>. This is not
93 legal advice; consult your lawyer.
95 Additional library software has been made available in the 'extlib'
96 directory. All of it is Free Software and can be distributed under
97 liberal terms, but those terms may differ in detail from the AGPL's
98 particulars. See each package's license file in the extlib directory
103 This is a security fix and bug fix release since 1.1.3-beta2.
104 All 1.1.x sites should upgrade to this version.
106 So far it includes the following changes:
108 - XSS security fix (thanks Simon Waters, <https://www.surevine.com/>)
109 - Many improvements to ease adoption of the Qvitter front-end <https://github.com/hannesmannerheim/qvitter>
110 - Protocol adaptions for improved performance and stability
111 - Backing up a user's account now appears to work as it should
113 Upgrades from _StatusNet_ 1.1.1 will also experience these improvements:
115 - Fixes for SQL injection errors in profile lists.
116 - Improved ActivityStreams JSON representation of activities and objects.
117 - Upgrade to the Twitter 1.1 API.
118 - More robust handling of errors in distribution.
119 - Fix error in OStatus subscription for remote groups.
120 - Fix error in XMPP distribution.
121 - Tracking of conversation URI metadata (more coherent convos)
125 The primary output for GNU social is syslog,
126 unless you configured a separate logfile. This is
127 probably the first place to look if you're getting
128 weird behaviour from GNU social.
130 If you're tracking the unstable version of
131 GNU social in the git repository (see below), and you
132 get a compilation error ("unexpected T_STRING") in
133 the browser, check to see that you don't have any
134 conflicts in your code.
138 If you're adventurous or impatient, you may want
139 to install the development version of GNU social.
140 To get it, use the git version control tool
141 <http://git-scm.com/> like so:
143 git clone git@gitorious.org:social/mainline.git
145 In the current phase of development it is probably
146 recommended to use git as a means to stay up to date
147 with the source code. You can choose between these
149 - 1.1.x "stable", few updates, well tested code
150 - master "testing", more updates, usually working well
151 - nightly "unstable", most updates, not always working
153 To keep it up-to-date, use 'git pull'. Watch for conflicts!
155 ## Further information
157 There are several ways to get more information about GNU social.
159 * The #social IRC channel on freenode.net <https://www.freenode.net/>.
160 * The unofficial XMPP room linked to IRC on <xmpp:gnusocial@conference.bka.li>
161 * The GNU social website <https://gnu.io/social/>
162 * Following us on GNU social -- <https://quitter.se/gnusocial>
164 * GNU social has a bug tracker for any defects you may find, or ideas for
165 making things better. <https://bugz.foocorp.net/>
166 * Patches are welcome, preferrably to our repository on Gitorious. <https://gitorious.org/social/mainline>
171 The following is an incomplete list of developers
172 who've worked on GNU social, or its predecessors
173 StatusNet and Free Social. Apologies for any
174 oversight; please let mattl@gnu.org know if
175 anyone's been overlooked in error.
179 * Matt Lee (GNU social)
180 * Evan Prodromou (StatusNet)
181 * Mikael Nordfeldth (Free Social)
183 Thanks to all of the StatusNet developers:
185 * Zach Copley, StatusNet, Inc.
186 * Earle Martin, StatusNet, Inc.
187 * Marie-Claude Doyon, designer, StatusNet, Inc.
188 * Sarven Capadisli, StatusNet, Inc.
189 * Robin Millette, StatusNet, Inc.
200 * Tryggvi Björgvinsson
204 * Ken Sheppardson (Trac server, man-about-town)
205 * Tiago 'gouki' Faria (i18n manager)
207 * Leslie Michael Orchard
221 * Siebrand Mazeland and the amazing volunteer translators at translatewiki.net
222 * Brion Vibber, StatusNet, Inc.
223 * James Walker, StatusNet, Inc.
224 * Samantha Doherty, designer, StatusNet, Inc.
225 * Simon Waters, Surevine
226 * Joshua Judson Rosen (rozzin)
228 ### Extra special thanks to the GNU socialites
239 Thanks also to the developers of our upstream
240 library code and to the thousands of people who
241 have tried out GNU social, told their friends, and
242 built the fediverse network to what it is today.
244 ### License help from