What the gemini protocol means to me
Channel: Chris Were - Linux • tech • open source
Date: 2021-02-12

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Project Gemini: https://gemini.circumlunar.space
#Gemini is a new (the project started in June 2019) application-level #internet #protocol for the distribution of arbitrary files, with some special consideration for serving a lightweight hypertext format which facilitates linking between files. You may think of gemini as "the web, stripped right back to its essence" or as "gopher, souped up and modernised a little", depending upon your perspective. Gemini may be of interest to people who are: opposed to the web's ubiquitous user tracking, tired of obnoxious adverts, autoplaying videos and other misfeatures, interested in low-power computing and/or low-speed networks.

Gemini is intended to be simple, but not necessarily as simple as possible. Instead, the design strives to maximise its "power to weight ratio", while keeping its weight within acceptable limits. Gemini is also intended to be very privacy conscious, to be difficult to extend in the future (so that it will stay simple and privacy conscious), and to be compatible with a "do it yourself" computing ethos. For this last reason, gemini is technically very familiar and conservative: it's a protocol in the traditional client-server request-response paradigm, and is built on mature, standardised technology like URIs, MIME media types, and TLS.