About GNU social

GNU social is a social communication software used in federated social networks. It is widely supported and has a large userbase. It is already used by the Free Software Foundation, and Richard Stallman himself.

Learn more

About Google Summer of Code

Google Summer of Code is a global program focused on bringing more student developers into open source software development. Students work with an open source organization on a 3 month programming project during their break from school.

If you would like know how is it like to be a GSoC student at GNU social, read this blog post!

Learn more

Past successes


In 2020


V3 Frontend

Modular and meaningful Web UX for GNU social v3

Proposed by Eliseu Amaro and mentored by Joshua Judson Rosen, Phablulo Joel and Daniel Supernault.

Technical Report

V3 Backend

Initial implementation of GNU social v3's backend.

Proposed by Hugo Sales and mentored by Diogo Cordeiro and Alexei Sorokin.

Technical Report


In 2019


Improvements on GNU social's network systems

Private Messaging, further development on ActivityPub, improved Remote Actions.

Proposed by Bruno Casteleiro and mentored by Diogo Cordeiro.

Technical Report

Optimizations on Load Balance System and Storage Usage

Image System, Embed Plugin, Queue System, Caching System.

Proposed by Miguel Dantas and mentored by Diogo Cordeiro.

Technical Report

In 2018


GS ActivityPub Plugin

The tendency is that newer software will focus in the implementation of the ActivityPub Protocol (as it is newer and considered to be simpler) instead of OStatus, given that, it is important for GNU social to support it in order to stay updated and relevant in an even larger fediverse.

Proposed by Diogo Cordeiro and mentored by Daniel Supernault and Mikael Nordfeldth.

Technical Report