"Facebook killer" Diaspora source code released

Diaspora's friends status stream.
Source: joindiaspora.com The developers of Diaspora have released the source code and screen shots of their open social network software. The project has accumulated more than $200,000 in donations since last spring. Diaspora is a peer-to-peer-based social network with highly specific privacy settings. It was designed as an alternative to such networks as Facebook and MySpace which are controlled by a central service provider.

The Diaspora developers plan to launch their operation in October with an alpha version of their software. The alpha release will reportedly be able to access a user's Facebook data and integrate it into the data pool stored at the user's own network node. Modifications can apparently be re-integrated into Facebook if required. This aspect differentiates Diaspora from other private social networks such as the Buddypress network, which allow social networks to be created for and controlled by closed user groups, but don't offer any interoperability with other services.

Diaspora source code is hosted on GitHub and is licensed under the Affero General Public License version 3. Those interested in keeping up with the project can follow Diaspora on Twitter or identi.ca and join the mailing list

(crve)