social-doc/docs/user/what_is_gnu_social.rst
John Kristensen 3575fc337d Initial port of user manual to Sphinx
A port of the existing user manual over to reStructuredText and using
Sphinx to generate the documentation to see if it would be a suitable
replacement for the existing php generated method.
2016-03-05 00:58:05 +11:00

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1.9 KiB
ReStructuredText

What is GNU social
==================
GNU social is a social network for microblogging. It enables you to publish
short notices including URLs and pictures. If you're interested in what someone
has to say you can follow them. When you log in to your account you see a
timeline containing all of the notices from people that you follow. You can
have a conversation with another person by replying to each other's notices.
.. image:: ../../resources/user/gnusocialno_general_small.png
:alt: Homepage of gnusocial.no
:align: center
:target: ../_images/gnusocialno_general.png
.. |gnusocialno_general| image:: ../../resources/user/gnusocialno_general.png
You may have seen this sort of thing before. GNU social is special for two main
reasons: it's *decentralised*, and it's *free software*.
Being decentralised means that there is no single server that controls GNU
social. Instead, many servers are run by different people around the world.
These servers communicate with each other to form a *federation*. You can
create an account on any one of them. Although the servers sometimes look
different, ultimately it doesn't matter which one you choose—you're still part
of the same network as everyone else.
.. image:: ../../resources/user/federation.png
:align: center
If one server suffers an outage it's inconvenient for the people who have an
account on that particular server. The rest of the network continues to operate
as normal. This makes GNU social highly resilient. Censorship is difficult as
servers can be located anywhere in the world.
Because GNU social is free software it's here to stay. A corporate social
network might disappear or start running advertisements when the venture
capital runs out. The GNU social code is available to everybody and there are
many servers where it's free to create an account.
This is a social network that does what's best for the people who use it—not
what makes the most money.