Bridgy Fed

Got an IndieWeb site? Want to interact with federated social networks like Mastodon, Hubzilla, and more? Bridgy Fed is for you.

https://fed.brid.gy/

Bridgy Fed connects the IndieWeb with federated social networks using ActivityPub and OStatus. Original design docs:

• https://snarfed.org/indieweb-activitypub-bridge
• https://snarfed.org/indieweb-ostatus-bridge

License: This project is placed in the public domain.

Development

First, install the Google Cloud SDK (aka gcloud) with the gcloud-appengine-python and gcloud-appengine-python-extras components.

Once you've done that, run this to find the App Engine libraries directory:

STATE instead use Installation Root: [/usr/local/Caskroom/google-cloud-sdk/latest/google-cloud-sdk]
gcloud info | grep -o -E '/[^:]+google_appengine'

(If that doesn't output anything, try just gcloud info, look in the Python PATH section, and try to find the App Engine directory.)

Add that directory to your $PYTHONPATH, e.g. export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/opt/homebrew-cask/Caskroom/google-cloud-sdk/latest/google-cloud-sdk/platform/google_appengine. Then, run:

virtualenv local
source local/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python -m unittest discover

The last command runs the unit tests. If you send a pull request, please include (or update) a test for the new functionality!

If you hit an error during setup, check out the oauth-dropins Troubleshooting/FAQ section. For searchability, here are a handful of error messages that have solutions there:

bash: ./bin/easy_install: ...bad interpreter: No such file or directory

ImportError: cannot import name certs

ImportError: No module named dev_appserver

ImportError: cannot import name tweepy

File ".../site-packages/tweepy/auth.py", line 68, in _get_request_token
  raise TweepError(e)
TweepError: must be _socket.socket, not socket

error: option --home not recognized

You may need to change granary, oauth-dropins, webmention-tools, mf2util, or other dependencies as well as as Bridgy Fed. To do that, clone their repo locally, then install them in "source" mode with e.g.:

pip uninstall -y granary
pip install -e <path to granary>
ln -s <path to granary>/granary \
  local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/granary

The symlinks are necessary because App Engine's vendor module evidently doesn't follow .egg-link or .pth files. :/

To deploy to the production instance on App Engine - if @snarfed has added you as an owner - run:

gcloud -q app deploy --project bridgy-federated *.yaml

Compatibility

Here are in progress notes on how I'm testing interoperability with various federated social networks.

ActivityPub

• Mastodon (issue) works! They shipped support in 1.6.
  • snarfed@mastodon.technology, example post
• Hubzilla is getting close!
  • Old since lastauth.com is down now: snarfed@lastauth.com, example post
• distbin
  • No explicit accounts, can post anything as anyone
• pump.io
  • snarfed@datamost.com
  • Tried posting a bunch of ways, couldn't get any to work :/
• Kroeg
  • Not open to other users yet. Seems to be running at puckipedia.com/social.

Salmon

• Friendica
  • snarfed@libranet.de
  • Example post: HTML (alternate link), Atom
  • Atom has Salmon link rel, author.dfrn:handle is user URI (dfrn is http://purl.org/macgirvin/dfrn/1.0))
• GNU Social (née StatusNet)
  • snarfed@quitter.se
  • Example post: HTML, Atom
  • Atom has no Salmon link rels! author.name is username (snarfed)
• Hubzilla
  • snarfed@lastauth.com
  • Example post: HTML
  • Only has Atom link rel="alternate" for full feed, not individual post :/
  • Atom feed has Salmon link rels inside top level feed, not in individual entrys
  • Atom entries have author.name as username (snarfed)
• Mastodon
  • snarfed@mastodon.technology
  • Example post: HTML, Atom
  • Profile HTML/Atom have Salmon link rel. Individual post HTML/Atom don't. author.email is snarfed@mastodon.technology