Notices by bryan newbold (bnewbold@social.coop)

@nemobis atproto relays currently mirror only "records", not media blobs, so size isn't too crazy.

we think a degree of duplication and mirroring is good/healthy for the network. similar to having multiple copies of git repo checkouts. but a few dozen full network copies is probably plenty?

resource/climate-wise, what we see in our infra is that "reverse chron" timelines, and to some degree notification tracking, are expensive (much more than relay). ironically "algo feeds" are cheaper?

@nemobis at least for us, now, at current scale, for the bsky app, "reads" are more expensive (in kilowatts and silicon) than "writes". I don't think this would be particularly more efficient if network distributed the load more to many smaller nodes (vs having big API servers).

it is possible to "shard" parts of network for things like search queries. https://yacy.net/ might be relevant. I don't think that helps with efficiency though?

@cwebber @Claire @eramdam
I think a bunch about this post about the history of mp3 piracy and "minimum viable decentralization":
https://web.archive.org/web/20180725200137/https://medium.com/@jbackus/resistant-protocols-how-decentralization-evolves-2f9538832ada

(though it wasn't directly influential on atproto design, and Backus has since pulled the post)

@Claire @drq @cwebber the architecture of atproto kind of presumes that there is value/utility in "full world" indices: ability to search and find strangers with no social-graph-connection across the network.

I don't think all (or even much at all) social web stuff needs to end up in that bucket! but that bucket is going to exist in the world and have an impact. I love the AP social outcomes, but if AP doesn't provide for big-world broadcast, Twitter will continue to have a role in society

@cwebber @Claire @eramdam don't think the goal w/ atproto is to be "more decentralized" in the abstract. we (team) had worked on SSB and dat, which were radically decentralized/p2p but hard to work with and grow. would not supplant "the platforms".

atproto came out of identifying the *minimum* necessary decentralization properties, and ensuring those are strongly locked in. we basically settled on:

@cwebber @Claire @eramdam
unbundling and composition: ability to swap components w/o swapping full stack.

credible exit: ability for new interoperable providers to enter network. public data must be accessible w/o permission, and schemas/APIs declared

control identity: whole network/proto doesn't need to be individualist, but identity is personal

easy to build new apps: don't build for the old modalities, enable new modalities. accomodate opinionated devs.

@cwebber @Claire @eramdam I have a longer post on this, and our progress, on my personal blog:
https://bnewbold.net/2024/atproto_progress/

after the 2016 Trump election, there was a big movement to preserve government data and websites (EDGI: https://envirodatagov.org/).

I wasn't around for that, but I think there was a missed connection between web archive world and volunteer/movement world.

if similar efforts spring up in coming months, would love to help make connections between worlds!

@pluralistic that is still the situation: there is not a serious peer service provider operating those services in the network for the microblogging modality.

there is nothing preventing it: we support adversarial interop in the live network today, but no "adversary" has emerged.

hobbyists have run full-scale components as proofs of concept. there are fully independent apps (like smokesignals and whtwnd), and independent projects which index/store the full network (like clearsky)

@cwebber @stefan
for what it is worth, have always found your writing and critique on all this very insightful and productive!

@pluralistic yes!

moreover, those 100k followers would probably not even realize you changed service providers. you can use your own domain (which you own) as a handle. the authority for your content is you, not the service provider, so all your old content (in threads, interactions) continue to just work.

@pluralistic it is confusing to read this because we have done basically everything you propose in the AT Protocol, and it has been live in the network for a long time now. ensuring that service migration is easy and seamless is truely seamless is literally one of the reasons we did *not* use ActivityPub.

You can read how easy the process is here:
https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/entries/Migrating%20PDS%20Account%20with%20%60goat%60

On, I would mention, and independently run blogging service built on atproto! which bsky can't exclude/control

@chadkoh @pluralistic oh, no way! very excited Doctorow will be there.

I'm a co-author with Martin and will probably be the person traveling down and presenting in person.

@evan @hallenbeck
We have brought some of our work to the W3C community, including the recent TPAC meeting:
https://social.coop/@bnewbold/113199431948755006
I've had a Bluesky-affiliated W3C account for some time, and just joined the SocialCG just now (I thought I had done this previously, but apparently had only signed up for the mailing list)

@hallenbeck @evan

other folks have raised similar concerns in the past. you can see an open and and collaborative conversation from October 2023, resulting in license changes in November 2023:
https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto-website/issues/218

@evan @mmasnick I would be more than happy to talk with folks from SWF or W3C if they share this specific concern about Bluesky exploiting patents on social web technology, and what we can do to allay those concerns.

The norm in this space is to participate in a standards body, and it remains our intention to do so.

@evan @mmasnick when you raised patent concerns to me in person on March 2024, I took them very seriously! which is why I reached out and had a direct call with you about your concerns that same month.

"Right now, you're putting everyone in the space at risk" is a strong statement and accusation of wrong doing on our behalf.

@evan @mmasnick Evan, as you and I have discussed directly in the past, all of the atproto specifications and core implementations are under free and open licenses. Specifically, MIT and Apache 2.0 dual-licensing, with Apache 2.0 providing patent protection. Furthermore, Patents have public record, and anybody can confirm we have not filed for any.

Neither you nor I are lawyers, but I don't think there are any grounds to spread fear/uncertainty/doubt about atproto and patents.

@arcanicanis @by_caballero @silverpill @erlend (glad to re-connect!)

i'm not sure I understand the advantage of leaning in to DID URLs instead of creating a new URI scheme (eg, fedi://).

it would be great if we could get WHATWG to allow DIDs in the authority section of URLs, at least non-HTTP URLs. I haven't started that conversation yet, but could be helpful for a bunch of DID-using projects.

curious to hear about how did:fedi resolution would work! aka how to discover authoritative server

@evan @everton137 bummed that you have such a negative public take on atproto and Bluesky and see it as antagonistic and "dangerous".

I have a huge respect for ActivityPub and the folks involved, including you. I think we are all working towards the same goals, there is no final word on protocols/architecture/governance/regulation in this space, and that there is a lot of room for collaboration.