Marta
Does anybody here can #help me to solve a doubt on #Mastodon and #ActivityPub portability?
Context; I am writing a post about Mastodon and Bluesky and wouldn’t like to be imprecise.
I read in a blog that ActivityPub actually allows moving data of users and content from one server to another and that it is the Mastodon development of ActivityPub which puts the problem of portability.
Marta
On the other hand, I found this link where they seem to say that ActivityPub already allows portability (so do Mastodon already?) but it is only implementation as W3C standard what lacks. https://swicg.github.io/activitypub-data-portability/
I do really appreciate if someone can tell me if I am reading the issue correctly. I am not a software developer, so I am afraid that I have missed some important concept or info.
Thanks in advance for any help 🙏
*edited to add the link and to clarify text.
silverpill
@fuina ActivityPub was not designed with data portability in mind. Mastodon and other services are not to blame, in fact they are doing their best and provide data portability options where possible, for example they support migration of followers and exporting/importing of follow, block and mute lists.
About two years ago a novel way to implement full data portability in ActivityPub network was discovered. The solution is described here: https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/ef61/fep-ef61.md
I don't think a non-technical explanation of this mechanism exists, but it has similarities to the implementation on data portablity in Zot protocol (which is also part of Fediverse family of protocols and pre-dates ActvityPub):
https://opennomad.net/page/nomad/home
https://joinfediverse.wiki/Nomadic_identity
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