Understanding Status.net and federated web

NickPfen

Hello,
I'm considering installing an instance of status.net's open source microblogging platform on my own server/website. From what I gather, status.net is open source, user owned data, and a decentralization movement of the web- like ostatus.org

However, I need some clarity. If I install status.net on my own server and run it on www.xyz.com/mircoblog , doesn't that mean I need users to come to my site, create their own profile, and start posting; therefore, I control their data in my database and I'm the responsible party?

Isn't that just centralizing users to my site and the same thing as twitter and facebook?

-Nick

habi

>Isn't that just centralizing users to my site and the same thing as twitter and facebook?

It is, but the beautiful thing is that several instances of StatusNet can interact with each other without problems. I have one instance installed only for me, another contact too, we're both interacting with people on identi.ca. Since there are also many users on parlementum.net we can speak with each other and are not bound to our single node.

NickPfen

Hi Habi,
Thanks for the comment. How do you find and interact with other users or web platforms that are ostatus enabled from your own instance of status.net?

march

@NickPfen:
what habi speaks about is called federation. see http://status.net/wiki/Federation

to get started have a look at http://status.net/wiki/List_of_servers and start from there.

have fun! :)

kaberi

http://status.net/wiki/Federation is rather insufficient.
Can someone give some more example or docs?
If I have installed status net script on my server abc dot com and my friend has done so on xyz dot net, can users here communicate with users there? How?
Thanks for helping to understand.

I posted this message at http://bentio.com/notice/2532902 (bentio being in the list at http://status.net/wiki/List_of_servers) ..... however the message did not show up simultaneously in identi.ca

habi

@kaberi your message will not automatically show up on another instance. you can interact with users on another instance if you're subscribed to them or if you address them. for me (status.davidhaberthuer.ch) you'd address a notice @habi@status.davidhaberthuer.ch, my (old, defunct) account on identi.ca can be addressed with @habi@identi.ca from any federated instance...

kaberi

@habi okay - thanks so much. But I need some more little help. I have set up 2 statusnet sites on 2 completely different domains on different webhosts, for example xyz.com/sta and abc.com/sta. BUT when a message is posted by an user at xyz.com to @user_name@abc.com/sta it does not show up, and vice versa. What else one needs to do on the admin side or configuration? These are all latest stable default installs, with default OStatus installed.
Thanks again.

habi

@kaberi I'm sorry, I can't help you. With me federated instance this worked out of the box. Maybe you can talk to people on IRC (freenode #statusnet) and ask for help there, since the forum doesn't seem to attract too many helpful people...