2025-10-28 The sherlocking of the gemini protocol
If you are not into off the beat technologies then the term Gemini in techie speak probably means you are referring to google Gemini if anything. However, there is another technology that uses the term Gemini for a protocol. It's unfortunate as the word Gemini in the context of techie speak no longer has a clear defined singular meaning anymore. Perhaps the closest term that can describe this phenomonen is sherlocked. However, that term is usually used to describe what happens to an app. In this case we have another (sub)genre of technology subsuming a protocol. Some other possible terms that might describe this phenomenon are appropriation, hostile takeover, or corruption. I am sure there quite a few other terms that might be appropriate in this context.
Unfortunately, the company behind this sherlocking also happens to run (at present) the most well known search engine on the planet which makes finding info on the gemini protocol that much harder to search for unless you are know to add protocol to your searches for gemini to help disambiguate a now sherlocked term.
Oh yes, how does this relate to the BSDs? Because of the sherlocking, doing a simple search for the term gemini using the pkg tool might not bring up what you hope for. However, adding some more context and tweaking the query to pkg might help. Here is an example:
$ pkg search -D 'gemini protocol'
gemget-1.9.0_9:
Gemget is a cli downloader for the gemini protocol.
This tool allows you to download files from gemini capsules.
It is built with go.
gmid-2.1.1:
gmid is a server for the Gemini protocol. It has various
features, among which Capsicum support and a "config-less"
mode akin to "python -m http.server" to quickly serve local
directories from the shell.
If you already happen to know the name of tools that let you into the Gemini protocol world that would be easier. But if that was the case you wouldn't be new to the Gemini protocol:
$ pkg search lagrange
lagrange-1.17.6_1 Beautiful Gemini Client
geminiprotocol.net - Probably about as 'official' as it gets about the Gemini protocol