Strypey
Last night I watched a video of @benpate's talk from #FediCon last year;
https://peertube.iridescent.nz/w/sW6qcdP4ogG5DXW1RUzyo3
What a ride! I found myself vigorously agreeing with most of it. But there were other parts where I was divided against myself. One part still agreeing. another part nervous, that if we go down the road of scaling, monetisation and professionalisation, we risk repeating the mistakes of the original web, and end up right back where we started in another 20 years.
(1/?)
silverpill
@strypey @benpate @takahe Correct, FEPs could be about anything related to Fediverse.
And personally, I would be happy to see a FEP about multi-domain setups.
Ben Pate 🤘🏻
Sure, it’s a pretty standard process. I’m happy to talk about how to do it, but it probably wouldn’t be a FEP.
There’s not much about the ActivityPub protocol involved.. just making a server with a switch in front to choose which database you’re reading from.
Strypey
@benpate
> it probably wouldn’t be a FEP. There’s not much about the ActivityPub protocol involved.. just making a server with a switch in front to choose which database you’re reading from
@silverpill might correct me on this, but I don't think FEPs necessarily need to be about the AP protocol itself. They can also be about ways to standardise quality-of-life improvements to AP software. Which BYOD support definitely counts as in my book.
Ben Pate 🤘🏻
😁😁
Yes, Emissary already serves multiple domains from the same server cluster.
Right now, Bandwagon.fm is two web servers and three databases (way more than I need, but fun to test on). It’s the same cluster that serves fixe or six domains.
So yes, it’s ready to host a bunch more domains, then let people bounce from one server over to the next (on my cluster or elsewhere)
Strypey
@benpate
> Yes, Emissary already serves multiple domains from the same server cluster
Wicked! I'd love to see more fediverse software adopting this, and ideally an FEP written up for how to do it.
Strypey
@benpate have you looked into how @takahe were able to host multiple domain names on one Takahē server? Is that something you've considered for BandWagon, as part of account portability?
Strypey
A service like bandwagon.fm could be a co-op, owned by the artists whose music it hosts. It could be a social enterprise, whose constitution prioritises the needs of those artists over the financial interests of owners.
But however its governance is structured, one of the best ways to keep services accountable is the freedom to leave. So social publishing services need to enable publishers to use their own domain names for account and post URLs, and provide full account export.
(10/?)
Strypey
We all know about the ways tech founders have sold their souls for funding to keep their platforms online; ads, Venture Capital, acquisition by corporations, or becoming one (IPO). Obviously we need ethical alternatives for social web services.
But not just alternative funding models. We also need alternative governance models, which keep the operators of services accountable to the people using them.
(9/?)
Strypey
Take music publishing as an example. If artists commit to making bandwagon.fm the primary online home for their music, they need to be sure that it will continue to exist, and they will get plenty of notice before it's shut down. Which means the people running it need to have a plan for how they will cover the costs of storing and serving a growing collection of music files, long term.
(8/?)
Strypey
Some of the considerations for social publishing services, that aren't so much of an issue for social communication services;
* persistence and responsible sunsetting
* storage and bandwidth costs
* accountable governance
* Bring Your Own Domain
To be clear, I'm not saying these things aren't helpful in communication services, they certainly are. They're just not as mission critical as they are in publishing services.
(7/?)
Strypey
Sure, now that Loops exists, it's probably the better choice for posting ephemeral microvideos, as part of a social conversation, like we do with text micro-posts. But Loops isn't constrained to this kind of social communication usage. It supports videos up to 3mins long, and people could just as easily use it to publish videos they might otherwise put on a YouTub channel. In the hopes they'll still be watched and valued many years hence.
(6/?)
Strypey
Now having given these software projects as examples, I want to make it clear I'm describing use patterns, either of which can be applied to any software.
After decades of blogging, I can't help thinking of what I do on Mastodon as publishing. I link to my old posts and dig through them to find stuff, just like I do on my blogs. Conversely someone could use PeerTube to do video blogging, auto-deleting their old posts after a while like people do with their micro-posting accounts.
(5/?)
Strypey
I've noticed that mainstream use of "social media" is mostly following Jonathan Haidt's usage to describe only the mostly parasocial DataFarming platforms;
So in response, I'll reframe the above as 2 kinds of social networks;
* social communication networks: many-to-many, relationship-based, ephemeral, eg Mastodon, Friendica, Misskey, GoToSocial
* social publishing networks: one-to-many, content-based, persistent, eg PeerTube, FunkWhale, WriteFreely, BandWagon
(4/?)
Strypey
I've posted here at least a couple of times about the difference between "social networks" (many-to-many, relationship-based), and "social media" (one-to-many, content-based). I said that the fediverse can accommodate both, but they come with very different design and deployment considerations.
(3/?)
Strypey
Ben identified this risk in the talk, so I don't want to give the impression it's something they're not aware of. What I'm trying to describe here is the weird feeling of double consciousness, where Ben pitched things that I've advocated for myself, and I was able to respond to them as if I was hearing them for the first time. Understanding some of the objections I've encountered from the inside, for a change.
(2/?)
silverpill
@steve @benpate Bring Your Own Domain is when you use your own domain for IDs/WebFinger while someone else hosts an instance (software). This means an instance will have more than one domain attached to it.
>I've brought my own domain to my self-hosted Mastodon server instance, but that doesn't make it an implementation (or instance) with multi-tenant capability.
Yes, it's your instance and your domain. No "multi".
silverpill
@steve @benpate @takahe I've read your explanation in https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/pulls/835/files but I still don't get the difference between multitenancy and BYOD. It seems that BYOD is just a special case of multitenancy where tenant == user.
Steve Bate
@silverpill @benpate I don't understand your point. Can you share your definition of "BYOD"? As we've discussed previously, I've brought my own domain to my self-hosted Mastodon server instance, but that doesn't make it an implementation (or instance) with multi-tenant capability.
Steve Bate
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz @benpate @silverpill @takahe Just saw this...
> except Takahē and BandWagon suggests it's hard to find
Other multitenant-capable sofware (not the same as BYOD), are Fedify, FIRM, and Vocata.
Strypey
@benpate
> am not sure I have enough time to do a good job of it
Maybe you and Andrew from Takahē could draft something together?
> too behind on other things to give this the attention it would deserve
There's no rush. Maybe keep it in mind as something to circle back to?
> there should be lots of tutorials on multi-tenant architecture
Can you recommend any? The lack of support for BYOD in all fediverse software except Takahē and BandWagon suggests it's hard to find.
Ben Pate 🤘🏻
I’ve thought about this, and am not sure I have enough time to do a good job of it. I could probably make some sketchy notes, but am too behind on other things to give this the attention it would deserve - even an Emissary-only view of the architecture.
But, there should be lots of tutorials on multi-tenant architecture in general. I don’t think there’s much different about it from an ActivityPub point of view.
Strypey
@silverpill
> personally, I would be happy to see a FEP about multi-domain setups
Same. I'd particularly like to see a FEP that addresses ways of doing them that don't make self-hosting a multi-domain server a headache. Also, ideally, some documentation of UX workflows that make it easy for people to BYOD to a service, and move it elsewhere later.
BYOD is one of the features BS has over the fediverse. Let's fix that!
silverpill
>domain for IDs/WebFinger
Of course, ActivityPub actor IDs should use user's domain too
Steve Bate
@silverpill @benpate For this specific BYODomain use case, the WebFinger service is not the host for any AP tenants and their associated users/actors. Therefore, it's not related to the multitenancy topic. It's more like a fediHandle-to-URI "redirect". In the related concepts discussion, the FEP is referring to BYODomain in the context of ActivityPub actor ids.
GNU social JP is a social network, courtesy of GNU social JP管理人. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-dev, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.