Gemini space

Gemini space denotes the whole of the public information that is published on the Internet by the Gemini community via the Gemini protocol. Thus, Gemini spans an alternative communication web, with hypertext documents that include hyperlinks to other resources that the user can easily access, similar to the secure version of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS), but with a focus on simplified information sharing, both in respect to creation and reading of Gemini content.[1]

Amfora – Gemini client – Screenshot

Gemini resources

Gemini resources such as text of the media type "text/gemini" ("gem-text") or other content are provided by Gemini server software to clients requesting the resource residing at the queried URL. The server response contains a completion status and the requested content if available. Text in the gem-text format is line-oriented which simplifies rendering; it offers constructs for headlines (three levels), flat list items, pre-formatted text, and link lines – no inline emphasis.[2]

Gemini resources are identified and located on the network by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), using the URI scheme gemini:// which is analogous to https for the HTTPS web. Because Gemini was built from the ground up with security in mind, there exists no insecure analog to the original http scheme. As with HTTP hypertext, URIs are encoded as hyperlinks in gem-text documents, so as to form interlinked hypertext documents in the Gemini "web", which users refer to as "Gemini space".[3]

Community

The Gemini homepage can be found at gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space. To access this URL a Gemini browser (client) is needed. The community maintains a variety of such clients for text-based, graphical, and mobile platforms. The Gemini mailing list contains multiple announcements of new clients.[4] See Gemini (protocol)#Software for a detailed list.

Alternatively to native Gemini clients, Gemini-to-HTTP gateways can be used with common web browsers not supporting the Gemini protocol. Known such proxy servers are the Mozz.us portal,[5] Vulpes Proxy, [6] and ondollo.[7]

As of December 2020, Gemini space consists of around 500 known Gemini appearances ("capsules") identified by crawling over 50,000 URIs.[8]

A Gemini search engine irregularily harvests more than 200,000 URIs, publishing some historic data (see graph).[9]

Size of Gemini space over time

Critique

In respect to "the increasingly out-of-control Web" it is regarded positive, that people start thinking about alternatives.[10] Gemini is weird, small, and different; it is driven by the wish "that it could not easily be extended."[11] "[U]ltimately the geminiverse is lovely because it is underpopulated, slower-paced, and literate."[12] As some passages of documents on Gemini may sound like a manifesto, Gemini space might be "off-putting to those who want to explore a technology."[13]

As Gemini strictly separates the responsibility of content and presentation, authors have little control in how their content is presented.[14]

A discussion[15] of adding the Gemini protocol to curl mentioned the downside of closing the TLS-connection with each request; the usual non-existence of a certificate chain was seen as bad habit.[16] A guideline for adding protocols to curl was created since.[17]

See also

References
  1. "Project Gemini FAQ". Archived from the original on 22 June 2020. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
  2. Sangeelee, Kevin (June 25, 2020). "Gemini Protocol & Markup". www.susa.net. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
  3. "Lagrange". Retrieved November 15, 2020.
  4. "The Gemini 2020 Archive by subject". See [ANN] posts.
  5. "Gemini Portal". portal.mozz.us.
  6. "gemini.circumlunar.space - Gemini proxy". proxy.vulpes.one.
  7. https://gem.ondollo.com/
  8. "Statistics on the Gemini space". Proxied gemini://gemini.bortzmeyer.org/software/lupa/stats.gmi
  9. "GUS - Gemini Universal Search". Proxied gemini://gus.guru/statistics
  10. Kaiser, Cameron (November 5, 2020). "A Gopher view of Gemini". Old Vintage Computing Research. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
  11. https://communitywiki.org/wiki/Gemini
  12. https://maya.land/monologues/2021/01/11/the-tragedy-of-gemini.html
  13. Len Falken (2021-01-23). "Perceived relations between Gopher, Gemini, and HTTP". Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  14. DeVault, Drew (November 1, 2020). "What is this Gemini thing anyway, and why am I excited about it?". Retrieved December 3, 2020.
  15. "Curl: [PATCH] New protocol: gemini". curl.se (Mailing list).
  16. "Curl: Re: [PATCH] New protocol: gemini". curl.se (Mailing list).
  17. "Adding a new protocol?". curl/curl (GitHub).
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