imagine you could use your account on one of the walled gardens to exchange messages with useds of other walled gardens. cool, eh? we call that federatoin.
now imagine you have objections of conscience to the way a billionaire runs the service, so you (or someone at your service) download the server software and start running your own version of the service, so that you can interact with useds of other services, and with those who remain on the service you no longer wish to use. we call that an instance of the server. you can still interact with the server software and, through it, with others, in the same ways you were used to, but your instance is not running under the billionaire's control.
now imagine you find you were not so happy with the ways the server interacted with you in the first place, so you (or someone at your service) modify the software running on your instance, so that it better serves you. we call this software freedom.
mastodon, like most other server software that makes up the federated network called fediverse, works like that: it interoperates with different servers, it enables you to run your own instance (or to join others', if they allow you to use them instead), and it respects your autonomy and freedom
#TwitterMigration #Fediverse #FreeSoftware