"It's not Mastodon, it's the fediverse" feels a lot like "it's GNU/Linux", because some people feel like you're not crediting them enough for their ActivityPub implementation. This probably hurts mainstream adoption.
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@eloy I'd disagree with that; the rationale behind "it's not Mastodon, it's the fediverse" is very different.
It's not about 'credit', but about making it clear that there's a lot of options *beyond* Mastodon, which is important particularly with the questionable governance model behind the Mastodon project itself.
@eloy Huh? There's a vast set of ActivityPub-based functionality that Mastodon doesn't have and likely never will.
@joepie91 The other one is also about making clear that software exists beyond the Linux kernel, even though it doesn't matter for non-experts.
Of course there is a lot of room for improvement in Mastodon (and its governance), but I think it can serve the needs for virtually everyone without having to resort to alternative implementations.
Also, admins are running forks that are still branded as Mastodon. Unless upstream starts sueing them for trademark infringement, I don't see a problem.