Next Friendica Release Candidate available

The development cycle for the 2024.09 release enters the last stage before the stable release – today we have branched off the 2024.09 release candid branch. 2024.09-rc contains all the features of the stable release and is meant to test the new features, find some last rough edges and smooth out the path to the final stable release at the end of October. 2024.09 will be mostly a maintenance release fixing issues in various parts of Friendica. If you want to help out in testing, please checkout the new 2024.09-rc branch and report problems that you encounter.

The most notable changes in this release are:

- we now support HLS and further improved the compatibility with Bluesky,
- we dropped the support of OStatus (the predecessor of ActivityPub) after evaluating the amount of active servers/contacts that are still only using this protocol,
- Friendica is now REUSE compliant and supports FEP-67ff

What is Friendica

Friendica is a decentralized communications platform, you can use to host your own social media server that integrates with independent social networking platforms (like the Fediverse or Diaspora*) but also some commercial ones like Tumbler and BlueSky.

How to use the 2024.09 RC Version of Friendica

If you want to help in the release process, you can checkout the 2024.09-rc branch from the git repositories.
git fetch
git checkout 2024.09-rc
git pull
bin/composer.phar install --no-dev
Note that you only need to pull the composer dependencies in the core repository.

Should the upgrade process of the database get stuck

If you encounter this, please initiate the DB update manually from the command line by running the script
./bin/console dbstructure update
from the base of your Friendica installation. If the output contains any error message, please let us know using the channels mentioned above.
What to do with Quirks

The 2024.09-rc phase is meant to identify and preferable resolve quirks and bugs that should not be in the 2024.09 release, but have slipped through so far. So if you switch your node to the 2024.09-rc version of Friendica, please let us know about rough edges you find, either at the issue tracker (github account required), in the support group or in the developers group.

Thanks a lot for helping with the release https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f642.png

friendi.ca/2024/10/15/next-fri…

Friendica 2022.12 released

We are very happy to announce the avail-ability of the new stable version of Friendica. Wrapping up the sprint from the 2022.10 release of Friendica we closed 73 filed issues and had almost 300 pull requests by 19 contributors.

A special thanks goes out to Christian Pöschl from usd AG and Matthias Moritz who have found a CSRF- and XSS-attack, that is fixed with this release.

In addition to fixing this bug, the highlights of the changes since the 2022.10 release are
The default theme of Friendica (frio) got many improvements and some old themes got deprecated. The calendar saw some improvements and can now be made visible to anonymous visitors. The homepage mentioned on the user profile is now automatically verified via the rel-me backlink. Images attached to a posting are now shown in a grid at the bottom of the posting. A moderation corner was established from the admin panel where a future release will add more moderation tool and bundle them with the current once.
For details, please the CHANGELOG file in the repository.

Since version 2022.06 the lowest required PHP version Friendica needed on the server was raised to PHP 7.3 and PHP 8.0 is supported.
What is Friendica
Friendica is a decentralized communications platform, you can use to host your own social media server that integrates with independent social networking platforms (like the Fediverse or Diaspora*) but also some commercial ones like Twitter.
How to Update Updating from old Friendica versions
If you are updating from an older version than the 2022.06 release, please first update your Friendica instance to that version as it contained some breaking changes.
Pre-Update Procedures
Ensure that the last backup of your Friendica installation was done recently.
Using Git
Updating from the git repositories should only involve a pull from the Friendica core repository and addons repository, regardless of the branch (stable or develop) you are using. Remember to update the dependencies with composer as well. So, assuming that you are on the stable branch, the commands to update your installation to the 2022.12 release would be
cd friendica
git pull
bin/composer.phar install --no-dev
cd addon
git pull
If you want to use a different branch than the stable one, you need to fetch and checkout the branch before your perform the git pull.

Pulling in the dependencies with composer will show some deprecation warning, we will be working on that in the upcoming release.
Using the Archive Files
If you had downloaded the source files in an archive file (tar.gz) please download the current version of the archive from friendica-full-2022.12.tar.gz (sha256) and friendica-addons 2022.12.tar.gz (sha256)) and unpack it on your local computer.

As many files got deleted or moved around, please upload the unpacked files to a new directory on your server (say friendica_new) and copy over your existing configuration (config/local.config.php and config/addon.config.php) and .htaccess files. Afterwards rename your current Friendica directory (e.g. friendica) to friendica_old and friendica_new to friendica.

The files of the dependencies are included in the archive (make sure you are using the friendica-full-2022.12 archive), so you don’t have to worry about them.
Post Update Tasks
The database update should be applied automatically, but sometimes it gets stuck. If you encounter this, please initiate the DB update manually from the command line by running the script
bin/console dbstructure update
from the base of your Friendica installation. If the output contains any error message, please let us know using the channels mentioned below.

Please note, that some of the changes to the database structure will take some time to be applied, depending on the size of your Friendica database.
Known Issues
Regarding the update process none as of writing.
How to Contribute
If you want to contribute to the project, you don’t need to have coding experience. There are a number of tasks listed in the issue tracker with the label “Junior Jobs” we think are good for new contributors. But you are by no means limited to these – if you find a solution to a problem (even a new one) please make a pull request at github or let us know in the development forum.

Contribution to Friendica is also not limited to coding. Any contribution to the documentation, the translation or advertisement materials is welcome or reporting a problem. You don’t need to deal with Git(Hub) or Transifex if you don’t like to. Just get in touch with us and we will get the materials to the appropriate places.

Thanks everyone who helped making this release possible and have fun!friendi.ca/2022/12/20/friendic…

https://friendi.ca/2022/12/20/friendica-2022-12-released/

Friendica 2022.10 released

It took a bit longer then expected, but we are very happy to announce the avail-ability of the new stable version of Friendica the “Giant Rhubarb” 2022.10.

Kudos to everyone who made this release possible by their contributions!

In addition to fixing bugs and improving the performance of Friendica, the highlights of the changes since the 2022.06 release are
the Gàidhlig translation was added to the repository, thanks to the work of @gunchleoc,node admins using relays can now configure languages of postings arriving over the relay that should be discarded automatically,the 2FA login has been reworked, andit was discovered that using the Blowfish algorithm is implying a password length limit of 72 characters. Should you use a longer password, this will be transparently dealt with upon your next login.
For details, please the CHANGELOG file in the repository.

Since version 2022.06 the lowest required PHP version Friendica needs on the server was raised to PHP 7.3 and PHP 8.0 is supported.
What is Friendica
Friendica is a decentralised communications platform, you can use to host your own social media server that integrates with independent social networking platforms (like the Fediverse or Diaspora*) but also some commercial ones like Twitter.
How to Update Updating from old Friendica versions
If you are updating from an older version than the 2022.06 release, please first update your Friendica instance to that version as it contained some breaking changes.
Pre-Update Procedures
Ensure that the last backup of your Friendica installation was done recently.
Using Git
Updating from the git repositories should only involve a pull from the Friendica core repository and addons repository, regardless of the branch (stable or develop) you are using. Remember to update the dependencies with composer as well. So, assuming that you are on the stable branch, the commands to update your installation to the 2022.10 release would be
cd friendica
git pull
bin/composer.phar install --no-dev
cd addon
git pull
If you want to use a different branch then the stable one, you need to fetch and checkout the branch before your perform the git pull.

Pulling in the dependencies with composer will show some deprecation warning, we will be working on that in the upcoming release.
Using the Archive Files
If you had downloaded the source files in an archive file (tar.gz) please download the current version of the archive from friendica-full-2022.10.tar.gz (sha256) and friendica-addons 2022.10.tar.gz) and unpack it on your local computer.

As many files got deleted or moved around, please upload the unpacked files to a new directory on your server (say friendica_new) and copy over your existing configuration (config/local.config.php and config/addon.config.php) and .htaccess files. Afterwards rename your current Friendica directory (e.g. friendica) to friendica_old and friendica_new to friendica.

The files of the dependencies are included in the archive (make sure you are using the friendica-full-2022.10 archive), so you don’t have to worry about them.
Post Update Tasks
The database update should be applied automatically, but sometimes it gets stuck. If you encounter this, please initiate the DB update manually from the command line by running the script
bin/console dbstructure update
from the base of your Friendica installation. If the output contains any error message, please let us know using the channels mentioned below.

Please note, that some of the changes to the database structure will take some time to be applied, depending on the size of your Friendica database.
Known Issues
Regarding the update process none as of writing.
How to Contribute
If you want to contribute to the project, you don’t need to have coding experience. There are a number of tasks listed in the issue tracker with the label “Junior Jobs” we think are good for new contributors. But you are by no means limited to these – if you find a solution to a problem (even a new one) please make a pull request at github or let us know in the development forum.

Contribution to Friendica is also not limited to coding. Any contribution to the documentation, the translation or advertisement materials is welcome or reporting a problem. You don’t need to deal with Git(Hub) or Transifex if you don’t like to. Just get in touch with us and we will get the materials to the appropriate places.

Thanks everyone who helped making this release possible and have fun!friendi.ca/2022/10/14/friendic…

https://friendi.ca/2022/10/14/friendica-2022-10-released/