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<p style="text-align:center"><a href="#about">About</a> | <a href="#license">License</a> | <a href="#contact">Contact</a></p>
<blockquote style="text-align:center">
<p><em>"Your voice matters — even when no one knows your name."</em></p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="about">About</h2>
<p>Every platform you use today has an owner. Someone who reads your posts before
you publish them. Someone who decides what you can say, who you can reach, and
whether your account exists tomorrow.</p>
<p>Tesseras is a peer-to-peer social network with no central server, no accounts
to ban, and no algorithm deciding what you see. You publish markdown content
directly to an overlay network. Others discover it through a distributed hash
table — no middleman, no moderation queue, no terms of service.</p>
<p>You can be pseudonymous, with a cryptographic identity that proves authorship
without revealing who you are. Or you can be fully anonymous — no identity at
all, just words.</p>
<h3>How It Works</h3>
<p>Nodes connect directly over QUIC, forming a self-organizing network. Content
is addressed by its BLAKE3 hash — immutable and verifiable. Communities are
cryptographic zones, not corporate property. Names are local petnames, not a
global registry someone controls.</p>
<p>There is no blockchain. No tokens. No incentive layer. Nodes relay content for
each other because that is how the network works.</p>
<h3>Why "Tesseras"?</h3>
<p>A <em>tessera</em> is a small piece of stone or glass used to compose a mosaic.
Individually simple. Individually durable. But together, they form something
larger. Some Roman mosaics made of tesserae are still intact after two thousand
years.</p>
<p>Each post in the network is a tessera — a small, self-contained fragment.
The network is the mosaic, assembled piece by piece, by many hands.</p>
<h2 id="inspiration">Standing on the Shoulders of Giants</h2>
<p>Tesseras doesn't exist in a vacuum. It builds on decades of work by projects
that proved decentralization is not just possible — it works.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://geti2p.net/">I2P</a> — anonymous overlay network with garlic routing and a Kademlia-based NetDB</li>
<li><a href="https://ipfs.tech/">IPFS</a> — content-addressed distributed storage over a Kademlia DHT</li>
<li><a href="https://www.gnunet.org/">GNUnet GNS</a> — decentralized name system (RFC 9498), direct ancestor of Tesseras TNS</li>
<li><a href="https://scuttlebutt.nz/">Scuttlebutt</a> — P2P social with append-only logs, gossip replication, and Ed25519 feeds</li>
<li><a href="https://nostr.com/">Nostr</a> — event-based social protocol with Ed25519 identities</li>
<li><a href="https://iroh.computer/">Iroh</a> — QUIC-based P2P with relay fallback and hole punching</li>
<li><a href="https://veilid.com/">Veilid</a> — P2P framework with DHT and encrypted routing</li>
<li><a href="https://man.openbsd.org/relayd">OpenBSD relayd</a> — reference for the daemon/control privilege separation architecture</li>
<li><a href="https://man.openbsd.org/unwind">OpenBSD unwind</a> — inspiration for the local DNS resolver design</li>
<li><a href="https://briarproject.org/">Briar</a> — censorship-resistant messaging over Tor and Bluetooth</li>
<li><a href="https://retroshare.cc/">RetroShare</a> — friend-to-friend encrypted forums, channels, and chat</li>
<li><a href="https://join-lemmy.org/">Lemmy</a> — federated Reddit-like forum, moderation model reference</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="contact">Contact</h2>
<h3>Mailing Lists</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://lists.sr.ht/~ijanc/tesseras-discuss">tesseras-discuss</a> — questions, support, general discussion</li>
<li><a href="https://lists.sr.ht/~ijanc/tesseras-devel">tesseras-devel</a> — patches and development</li>
<li><a href="https://lists.sr.ht/~ijanc/tesseras-announce">tesseras-announce</a> — releases and milestones</li>
<li><a href="https://lists.sr.ht/~ijanc/tesseras-security">tesseras-security</a> — vulnerability reports</li>
</ul>
<h3>IRC</h3>
<p>Join us on <a href="https://libera.chat/">Libera.Chat</a> in the <strong>#tesseras</strong> channel (<a href="https://web.libera.chat/#tesseras">webchat</a>).</p>
<h3>Bug Reports</h3>
<p>File bug reports and feature requests on the <a href="https://todo.sr.ht/~ijanc/tesseras">ticket tracker</a>.</p>
<h3>Source Code</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://git.sr.ht/~ijanc/tesseras">SourceHut</a> (primary)</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/ijanc/tesseras">GitHub</a> (mirror)</li>
</ul>
<h3>Resources</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://sr.ht/~ijanc/tesseras/feed.rss">SourceHut feed</a> — commits, tickets, and mailing list activity</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="license">License</h2>
<pre style="text-align:left;font-size:0.9em;white-space:pre-wrap">ISC License
Copyright (c) 2025-2026 Tesseras Contributors <contact@tesseras.net>
Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any
purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.</pre>
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