Evan Prodromou
This seems like a lot of Strong Nos.
I'm glad to hear it. I don't think Bluesky, Farcaster, or any other company should convince everyone to use the protocol they control. Their investors have bet that we will.
I like using and contributing to open standards developed in neutral standards bodies like IETF and W3C.
I will not stop saying that open standard protocols are better for the Internet than proprietary ones.
Evan Prodromou
I will, however, continue trying to learn how to say this in ways that are clear and comprehensible to listeners.
Evan Prodromou
I also think it's *great* when companies implement open standards. That puts them on an even playing field with individuals, families, coops, non-profits, universities, governments, and other parts of civil society. I hope the companies named above find better ways to engage with the wider Internet. I'm happy to help them however I can.
Evan Prodromou
Finally, I am sad that the ActivityPub network is still vulnerable to this kind of attack. No one has launched a startup to challenge HTTP lately. I am taking this as a wake up call to help build the infrastructure and resources ActivityPub needs to be equally ubiquitous.
Bruce Elrick
@evan We need to keep the successful insertion of inscrutable DRM into official HTML standards by powerful interests top of mind when defending ActivityPub from the corporations at the gate.
Evan Prodromou
I don't like conversations about comparing protocols on technical grounds. It's not that I think ActivityPub cannot stand up to others -- it's a fantastic, flexible, secure and extensible protocol -- but I think the framing ignores the governance issues. I do appreciate the challenges, though -- it helps make ActivityPub better.
Evan Prodromou
One last thing: I think ActivityPub is flexible enough that experimentation can happen in a huge number of ways. Building an extension is very straightforward and extensions carefully designed can easily be backwards-compatible.
Evan Prodromou
Lastly, I think a lot of the discussion around ActivityPub in some communities is really negative. Instead of celebrating the immense success of the protocol, and its impressive positive characteristics, there's a lot of picking at flaws around the edges. In that framework, people find my enthusiasm about AP hard to hear. I understand why people might want to talk that way, but I also prefer to talk about why I love it, and how we can make a good thing better.
Evan Prodromou
@trwnh I don't think you understood the example. I tried to rewrite it to make it clearer in which way I am comparing AP to other protocols.
infinite love ⴳ
@evan this isn't a slight against activitypub but i don't think the comparison to http makes sense. partly because activitypub in a sense *is* http, at least in how it's broadly implemented. but it's just one class of http messages. i don't think it makes sense for all web traffic to be in activitypub format.
Evan Prodromou
There seems to be some misunderstanding on my intention here. This is not an invitation to a debate on the value of ActivityPub. If you would like to talk trash about ActivityPub, there are lots of places where that conversation is welcome, but this thread is not one of them.
infinite love ⴳ
@evan evan, might this be an unfair framing? the activitypub specification has a lot of positives, but the problems are a) not always at the edges, and b) mostly in how popular implementation ("the fediverse") has diverged from the spec, in some places quite significantly, to the point that anyone wanting to implement "activitypub" to the letter of the spec will not be able to talk to anyone on "the fediverse". webfinger and http sigs are one thing, but the core message semantics are another.
Evan Prodromou
@trwnh I don't think it's an unfair framing, but I'd be happy to read more positive posts about AP from others, if you think I've missed them.
infinite love ⴳ
@evan my point was more that “negativity” is not necessarily targeted at AP, but at the architecture and ecosystem of the present fediverse. people expressing their frustrations or criticisms should be seen as an opportunity to improve pain points at a protocol or profile level. one example is possibly spinning up a task force or report to document the lifecycles of resources and objects as they are created and deleted. another example is mapping out required properties and associated behaviors.
Evan Prodromou
@trwnh If you'd like to convince me that your negativity about AP is justified, and my positivity is off-track, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Evan Prodromou
@supergrobi sure. So, I'm talking about something more general about how my positive attitude rankles people, and @trwnh is bringing up very specific criticisms of ActivityPub.
I am definitely open to a's thoughts on AP; they are one of the smartest people thinking about the protocol today, and I've enjoy working with them on the weekly issue triage for AP, as well as coauthoring the AP+Webfinger CG report. a also did technical review for the ActivityPub book I wrote.
Supergrobi
@evan @trwnh Evan to me it sounds a bit as if constructive criticism (which is fundamental to progress and freedom) is taken by you as some kind of partisan attack on AP here. I don't know what conversations the two of you had before, though...
Evan Prodromou
@supergrobi @trwnh I definitely appreciate their idea of making a collection of profiles for AP to make it easier to build interoperable systems. I don't appreciate changing the topic in a thread I started from a general point to a topic of their own choosing. It is dismissive of the point I was trying to make.
Evan Prodromou
@supergrobi @trwnh anyway, thanks for the note.
Evan Prodromou
@supergrobi @trwnh in general, my position is that there are formal systems for people to give feedback and suggestions on ActivityPub, such as GitHub issues on the AP repository; discussions on SocialHub; posts to the SocialCG mailing list; discussions in the SocialCG meetings; creating FEPs; and creating extensions outside of the FEP process.
Evan Prodromou
@supergrobi @trwnh I engage in discussions about AP on this account, but it is my personal account, and not an official feedback channel.
Evan Prodromou
@supergrobi @trwnh my account at @evanprodromou is a good place to give feedback on the @swf and my work there.
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