Fedora in Fediverse

I really like how Fediverse is shaping up and its federation is starting to make sense to me. It’s not federation for the sake of federation and running different instances of the same service, but about variety of different services that focus on different things, cater different users and yet being to able to talk to each other.

There is Mastodon for microblogging, Friendica for a Facebook-style social network, PeerTube for videos, PixelFed for pictures, Nextcloud Social for making a social network out of your private cloud etc.

The number of users is also growing, it’s already in millions, so it’s becoming an interesting platform for promotion. There are quite a few open source projects already present: GNOME, KDE, openSUSE, Ubuntu, Nextcloud, Debian, F-Droid… And I’ve seen quite a few Fedora contributors scattered across different instances.

So I was like why not to have a Fedora instance there. That’s where Fedora contributors and enthusiasts can have their fediverse homes and create a community within a community, and where the Project can have official accounts for posting just like on Twitter or Facebook. The Fedora Code of Conduct would be enforced there, so that people can feel safe there.

I think the most suitable service for that would be Mastodon, microblogging is generally the most popular in Fediverse, Mastodon has a very active development and seems to be the most mature. There is also “Mastodon as a Service” hosting called masto.host. The domain could be e.g. fedora.social.

After proposing it on Fedora Discourse and talking to several people I think the best approach would be starting it as a personal initiative and if it gets traction handing it over to the Project. It would mean that I’d have to cover the hosting costs and rely on donations for the time being because that’s what having a social network where you’re not the product that is being sold takes.

But it would all go in vain if there was no demand for it. So I wonder:

• Would it make you start using Fediverse/Mastodon?
• Would it make you switch from another instance? (Mastodon allows you to transfer your data)
• Would you be willing to take a more active role (admin, moderator…)?
• Would you make a small contribution to help cover costs of running the service?

If you answer yes to any of the questions, let me know. I’d love to know if there is some demand for this or even people willing to help with it.