The Smol Web

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Community for the appreciation and sharing of links, resources, and culture of: the smol web / small web / ~(w)~ / the indie web / or even the non-www internet (gemini, gopher, etc).

Back of a napkin definition, subject to change: if it's internet accessible and is maintained by a person, especially for non-commercial aims, then I would consider it smol. There are, however, much stricter definitions.

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grrgyle@slrpnk.net

What's up with Gemini development? (piefed.kobel.fyi)

submitted 7 months ago by squirrel@piefed.kobel.fyi to c/smolweb@slrpnk.net

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I've been testing Gemini in Lagrange browser for a couple of days now. I like the concept and philosophy behind it. Simple, small sites, mostly text based.

But, I'm wondering why most of the browsers for Android are unmaintained and outdated. This protocol is perfect for mobile. No overloaded pages, small file sizes etc.

It seems that development of a lot of Gemini software discontinued a couple of years ago. What happened?

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[–] R2AZE@mastodon.radio 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

@squirrel The peak of interest in Gemini passed around that 2 years ago mark. The idea of "scrap this edifice and let's see if we can do without" is not currently in zeitgeist, and the AI debacle became the trendy thing. (and stole the "Gemini" name too)

When the AI bubble explodes, I expect we'll see another wave of interest.

[–] budget_biochemist@slrpnk.net 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

The idea of “scrap this edifice and let’s see if we can do without”

That's what I found confusing about Gemini - its goals aren't incompatible with HTTP but it's deliberately trying to be incompatible with HTTP, apparently just for the sake of being different and not any technical reasons.

To answer the original question of "What's up with Gemini development" it seems that interest has waned because building something that's deliberately incompatible with existing systems isn't going to maintain broad appeal and get people creating and using content and software on the system.

99% of the goal could be done in a web-compatible way by just having a way to declare that any site is "gemini-like" or "gopherish" by enforcing a Gopher-style hierarchy on the site, using a restricted subset of HTML (and semantic use of markup), minimal or no CSS (e.g. Smolweb's CSS Grading), no font embeds, no images, no JS, no videos. The remaining 1% could be done with a browser extensions that activate on any such page and provide gopher-style map/menu navigation with the keyboard.

[–] R2AZE@mastodon.radio 2 points 7 months ago

@budget_biochemist There was a technical reason, though. It was specifically that HTTP/HTML have become too extensive to actually implement afresh and consumed everything. Making something impossible to extend beyond a certain point was the explicitly stated goal, and that goal is impossible to reach with a defined subset of HTTP/HTML, precisely because it would be a subset, and thus the extant superset would be its extension.

It's a very (and needlessly) radical logic, but it is consistent.