Hello, community.

2 days ago, I announced on Reddit that I would migrate our subreddit, which is r/fossdroid to the Fediverse, after all what’s going on with Reddit’s so called API-pocalypse.

I won’t go in depth into the API issue and why it’s important again. You can read a small bit about it here and you’ll find plenty of information on the internet, as everyone is practically talking about it.

So where’s the KBin Instance?

Well, as you may or may not have noticed: It’s gone.

To explain it briefly: Both Lemmy and KBin are so called content aggregators that work in a similar way to how Reddit itself works. Members can join an instance, create communities, moderate them on their own and - most importantly - interact with other instances of software that speaks the ActivityPub language on the Fediverse.

When I first thought about creating this instance, I wanted to use Lemmy, as it’s obviously the most popular choice, has had time to mature, has a couple mobile apps available, etc.

I then found out that some of the developers of Lemmy support and follow ideologies that I can’t agree with, so I decided to go with a software called KBin instead. I didn’t want to get backlash for my choices, nor did I actively want to support or promote a thing made by individuals like that…

I set KBin up and while I still believe that it has a lot of potential, I didn’t only run into some issues, I also think that KBin is still too rough around the edges at this point in time.

So, after discussing this issue with my friends and some people in the FOSS community, I changed my mind.

The Dilemma

After trying to fix the federation issues that I had with KBin for more than 13 hours and also being kind of frustrated with some of the ways how KBin works, I wiped it off the server today and switched to Lemmy instead.

I’m sorry if you already registered an account and have to re-register now, but better have me change my mind two days after setting it up instead of later.

I came to the conclusion that even though the main developers of Lemmy may be whatever they are, it doesn’t necessarily make the software “evil”. It’s just software, after all.

Can anyone guarantee that every merged pull request to popular pieces of software, such as Linux for example, is made by people with “compatible” views? I don’t think so…

With Lemmy being FOSS, it’d be easy to fork the project and remove any kind of shenanigans that might be implemented at some point.

Reddit is practically throwing away a huge chunk of their userbase. Normal, non-technical users may want to find an alternative to Reddit NOW. Something that works. They don’t want to think about who made the software or whatnot.

New instances are needed, because single, big instances won’t be able to hold up with the load that’s caused by practically the whole of Reddit flocking in.

I still think that KBin and the developer behind it (Ernest) are fabulous. I really hope it’ll take off, but even though there are working instances of KBin right now, I’m currently not convinced of it at this very point in time. This might change later on.

Feel free to join FOSSware …

… or any other instance of a software that fits your needs on the Fediverse!

I really hope that nobody hates me for the decision I made. I wish you all a lot of fun creating communities and doing (almost) whatever you want here.

With regards and love from Germany

~ NH