Contents

Diaspora Compatibility

The Diaspora Protocol addon allows a site to communicate using the Diaspora protocol, which allows communications and connections to be made with Diaspora members (and also Friendica members, since that network also provides the Diaspora Protocol).

This addon is available in the 'basic' and 'standard' server configurations. It is not available with and the plugin is disabled completely when you are using the 'pro' server configuration. The reason for this is that the Diaspora protocol is not very sophisticated and many hubzilla features do not work well with it.

Members will have to be aware of limitations of the protocol or limit their own activities to those which are compatible with Diaspora. The 'pro' server configuration is free from these limitations and you may use all of the project features and abilities without regard for how they translate to other networks. Many features are unique to Hubzilla and are supported by the "Zot" protocol, which is our native communications language between servers/hubs.

If you are using a configuration which allows direct Diaspora communications you should be aware of the limitations presented here.  

• Private mail retraction (unsend) is not possible for Diaspora connections.
  
  
• Private posts and their associated comments are sent in plaintext email notifications in Diaspora and Friendica. This is a major privacy issue and affects any private communications you have where *any* member of the conversation is on another network. Be aware of it.
  
  
• Access control only works on posts and comments. Diaspora members will get permission denied trying to access any other access controlled hubzilla objects such as files, photos, webpages, chatrooms, etc. In the case of private photos that are linked to posts, they will see a "prohibited sign" instead of the photo. Diaspora has no concept of private media and provides an illusion of photo privacy by using obscured URLs rather than protecting the photo from snooping by unauthorised viewers.
  
  There is no workaround except to make your media resources public (to everybody on the internet).
  
  
  
• Edited posts will not be delivered. Diaspora members will see the original post/comment without edits. There is no mechanism in the protocol to update an existing post. We cannot delete it and submit another invisibly because the message-id will change and we need to keep the same message-id on our own network. The only workaround is to delete the post/comment and do it over. (If this is a post, this will delete any existing likes/comments). We may eventually provide a way to delete the out of date copy only from Diaspora and keep it intact on networks that can handle edits.
  
  
• Nomadic identity (hubzilla 'standard' only) will not work with Diaspora. We may eventually provide an **option** which will allow you to "start sharing" from all of your clones when you make the first connection. The Diaspora person does not have to accept this, but it will allow your communications to continue if they accept this connection. Without this option, if you go to another server from where you made the connection originally or you make the connection before creating the clone, you will need to connect with them again from the new location.
  
  
• Post expiration is not supported on Diaspora. We may provide you an option to not send expiring posts to that network. In the future this may be provided with a remote delete request.
  
  
• End-to-end encryption is not supported. We will translate these posts into a lock icon, which can never be unlocked from the Diaspora side.
  
  
• Message verification will eventually be supported.
  
  
• Multiple profiles are not supported. Diaspora members can only see your default profile.
  
  
• Birthday events will not appear in Diaspora. Other events will be translated and sent as a post, but all times will either be in the origination channel's timezone or in GMT. We do not know the recipient's timezone because Diaspora doesn't have this concept.
  
  
• We currently allow tags to be hijacked by default. An option is provided to allow you to prevent the other end of the network from hijacking your tags and point them at its own resources.
  
  
• Community tags will not work. We will send a tagging activity as a comment. It won't do anything.  
  
  
• Privacy tags (@!somebody) will not be available to Diaspora members. These tags may have to be stripped or obscured to prevent them from being hijacked - which could result in privacy issues.  
  
  
• Plus-tagged hubzilla forums should work from Diaspora.
  
  
  
• You cannot use Diaspora channels as channel sources.
  
  
  
• Dislikes of posts will be converted to comments and you will have the option to send these as comments or not send them to Diaspora (which does not provide dislike). Currently they are not sent.
  
  
• We will do the same for both likes and dislikes of comments. They can either be sent as comments or you will have the ability to prevent them from being transmitted to Diaspora. Currently they are not sent.
  
  
• Emojis are currently untranslated.
  
  
• "observer tags" will be converted to empty text.
  
  
  
• Embedded apps will be translated into links.
  
  
  
• Embedded page design elements (work in progress) will be either stripped or converted to an error message.
  
  
• Diaspora members will not appear in the directory.
  
  
  
• There are differences in oembed compatibility between the networks. Some embedded resources will turn into a link on one side or the other.  
  
  

Return to the Main documentation page