Océane (@oceane)

Gabe Kangas @gabek@social.gabekangas.com

2y

I just read a blog post where “ActivityPub” and “Mastodon” were used interchangeably.

I know this is not the hill I should die on. But it is a real problem that the Fediverse is being handed over to a single individual, and nobody seems to care.

It’s kind of like when your Grandma calls the web “The Facebook” or your Aunt says “I was on The Google checking the scores on ESPN”.

But this time it’s supposed to be open. It’s supposed to be decentralized. It’s not supposed to be one company owned by one person. It’s not supposed to be one implementation in one piece of software.

Just like you didn’t want everyone to call the web “Facebook” you shouldn’t want to call the Fediverse “Mastodon”.

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Océane @oceane@peculiar.florist

2y

@gabek Hmm. IMAP is the protocol. Email is, rather, the format, isn't it?

How should we call messages exchanged on ActivityPub? What should ActivityPub be the protocol of? We can be creative!

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Gabe Kangas @gabek@social.gabekangas.com

2y

@oceane They can be anything! It’s like saying “What do you call the content you exchange over HTTP?” Images, movies, documents, binaries, they are what they are.

Same thing with ActivityPub. If you use ActivityPub to build a chess game, then the core message would be a “move”. Or if you use ActivityPub to build to share music, it would be a “Song”. They are what they are. They’re certainly not a “Mastodon”!

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Luna Lactea @jackemled@furry.engineer

2y

@gabek @oceane We should call them "notes". You can write & attach absolutely anything you want on a Post-It note, you can write & attach absolutely anything you want in an ActivityPub thing. When someone asks their server for a post to see it, it's like their server asks the other server to pull its Post-It note for that post out of its notebook & let them see it.

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Océane @oceane@peculiar.florist

2y

@jackemled @gabek No, “note” is just the Note Object Type. How do you call the workflow? “Email” is the workflow of reading your mailbox, replying to emails, fetching attachments, etc.

We haven't given a name to ActivityPub's because it doesn't exist yet. It should fit to ActivityPub's workflow, and cover every Object Type. I was thinking about “iso”, by reference to isomorphic objects: its iridescent shape is constantly evolving, by reference to its contingent appropriation by free software communities – composed of developers and end users, of equal status in meeting community needs – as a protocol.

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Océane @oceane@peculiar.florist

2y

@jackemled @gabek To make a point against calling them “notes”, one should note that it's hard to put a video on a post-it. And it can actually be that, but also workflows – for example by using one's social media addiction to reward them for accomplishing tasks, through specific affordances, similar to @bonfire's – or adding an event that could be read in calendar software implementing the ActivityPub client-to-server API, in a regular blog post, federated through ActivityPub.

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Océane @oceane@peculiar.florist

2y

@jackemled @gabek @bonfire I'm urging us again to differentiate the protocol from the workflow. We need it for the sake of clarity, and we need to actually figure out something that isn't just “a shiny toy for white collar workers to post their career-related side projects, crushing teenagers' bones with their sweat and coagulated blood”.

(It isn't by any mean an argument, but my opinion of Mastodon is extremely low. I could make a few quick points about it though.)

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Luna Lactea @jackemled@furry.engineer

2y

@oceane @bonfire @gabek woosh

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Océane @oceane@peculiar.florist

2y

@jackemled @bonfire @gabek See ya gonna take care of my pets

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