<p>The primary use of GNU social is to access the <ahref="https://blog.diogo.site/what-is-the-fediverse">free network</a>, be it ActivityWeb (ActivityPub) or Fediverse (OStatus).</p>
<p>Contrary to the original plan, we have merged <ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/nightly/modules/TheFreeNetwork">The Free Network Module</a>, <ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/nightly/plugins/WebFinger">WebFinger</a> and <ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/nightly/plugins/LRDD">LRDD</a> into a single component named <ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/components/FreeNetwork">FreeNetwork</a>. Likewise, ActivityPub and ActivityStreams 2.0 was kept the same plugin instead of separated.</p>
<h2>Understanding the organisation chosen</h2>
<p>The FreeNetwork component adds WebFinger (RFC7033) lookup and implements Link-based Resource Descriptor Discovery (LRDD) based on RFC6415, Web Host Metadata. It takes and produces both Extensible Resource Descriptor (XRD) and JSON (JavaSript Object Notation). Furthermore, and different from v2, every federation protocol will use the same distribution queue maintained by this component instead of holding its own.</p>
<p>We originally intended to have data modelling plugins that would extend the GS's "language". We then understood that it added more complexity than we wanted without any considerable advantage because we cannot dissociate data reception handling of the protocol itself.</p>
<h2>Situation Report</h2>
<p><ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/plugins/ActivityPub">ActivityPub</a> already translates between activity and entity and allows plugins to extend it (thus serving a similar purpose to data modelling and representation plugins).</p>
<p>GNU social v3 now supports <ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/src/Util/Formatting.php#L292">mentions</a>, which is a process that starts in the <ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/components/Posting/Posting.php#L197">Posting component</a>. The processing of local mentions naturally finds its entire handling here.</p>
<p>For remote ActivityPub mentions, <ahref="(https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/plugins/ActivityPub/Entity/ActivitypubActor.php#L179">ActivityPub handles it aided by the FreeNetwork component</a>).</p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>We still have to port OStatus (and ActivityStreams 1.0) and implement the distribution by FreeNetwork, although the base work is done. Regarding ActivityPub, although some of it already works, expanding the existing plugins to supplement ActivityPub, and full validation isn't ready yet. We will most likely finish the implementation of the whole federation stack in the next week.</p>
<iframewidth="560"height="315"sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups"title="GNU social v3 Accessibility: Orca reading the Public feed"src="https://tube.tchncs.de/videos/embed/9a16e84c-4150-4849-ac63-019c9a3782d9"frameborder="0"allowfullscreen></iframe>
fetches remote files when they are <code>Linked</code> to in a note. I.e., when the major mime type isn't <code>text</code>. It triggers thumbnail generation.</p>
<p>We've changed so much with GNU social v3 that, regarding SRM there was no possible port, just a complete rewrite. Both plugins became smaller and easier to understand while promoting the same functionality with more stability.</p>
<li><ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/commit/32ad5dbd74ebb369c4b3ed688e1fb78464fabe49">32ad5dbd74 - [ENTITY] Split Attachment in various new entities</a></li>
<li><ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/commit/c381e58d3307e7dd07abeb9cf5b3998e34f5bd48">c381e58d33 - [ENTITY] Refactor RemoteURL entities to Link</a></li>
different books. These are automatically generated from the <ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/docs">source</a> using <ahref="https://rust-lang.github.io/mdBook/">mdBook</a>.</p>
<li>The <ahref="https://docs.gnusocial.rocks/developer">Developer</a> is both intended to guide third-party plugin developers and to make it easier of contributing to the code.</li>
<li>The <ahref="https://docs.gnusocial.rocks/designer">Designer</a> is the most recent of the four and came from a necessity of keeping some standardization between templates and ensuring the same principles are kept in mind when designing new themes.</li>
<ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/tests">tests</a>. And the coverage is available <ahref="https://coverage.gnusocial.rocks/">here</a>. At the time of writing the coverage has 98.76% code lines tested.</p>
<p>File Storage in GNU social is used for avatars, for notes containing
attachments, and for notes containing links (in which case is an Embed preview).
Notes can be created by local users or fetched from remote actors. Filehash is
used to reduce file duplication.</p>
<p>When a user shares a Link that uses OpenGraph tags or has an OEmbed provider,
the <ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/plugins/Embed">Embed plugin</a> generates a preview for it that may contain a thumbnail.</p>
<p>When a user shares a Link to an image, the <ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/plugins/StoreRemoteMedia">StoreRemoteMedia plugin</a> can fetch the
file and make it available as an attachment, and will generate a thumbnail.</p>
<p>When an image, video, or other file type is uploaded or retrieved, an Attachment
<li><ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/plugins/ImageEncoder">ImageEncoder</a>: Allows to compress, validate, rescale, and sanitize images using VIPS.</li>
<li><ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/plugins/VideoEncoder">VideoEncoder</a>: Allows to rescale gifs using FFMpeg.</li>
<p>Another helpful plugin is <ahref="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/plugins/FileQuota">FileQuota</a> which ensures a user stays under the file quota.</p>