Man könnte den Eindruck gewinnen, dass AP ein recht kaputtes Protokoll ist. Von Beginn an.
Man könnte den Eindruck gewinnen, dass AP ein recht kaputtes Protokoll ist. Von Beginn an.
♲ Mike Macgirvin (mike@macgirvin.com)2023-09-05 20:28:16:
I provided my input to the AP spec editor and it was rejected outright. Everything I provided to the ActivityPub editor was rejected outright. If there were any questions, it had to go through the Mastodon dictator, who rejected anything he didn’t invent. And then the ActivityPub editor would likewise reject it. „Mastodon has millions of users, you don’t“.
That’s the way the process works.
The major concern was that nomadic identity is hard, and the clock was ticking on when the spec had to be finalised. The ActivityPub editor also insisted that it be done using the draft digital identity spec. So that ensured it would never make it into ActivityPub.
Here we are 5-6 years later and they still can’t figure out how to do nomadic identity in a decentralised framework (outside of using torrents or centralised resolvers). Meanwhile we’ve had it, used it, and improved it for well over a decade.
There’s a specification in the public domain. Some complain that it isn’t enough, but I’m one person in a planet of 8 billion and haven’t had any help developing this. The only help I ever get is with bike shed stuff – web interfaces. Not one person has offered any help polishing up the spec or improving the actual implementation code or even offered critique and discussing the subject. Just „I can’t use this. Bye.“ [edit: apologies. That isn’t entirely correct. I did get help from one person.]
I’ve started to pick it up and try again using did’s as a proof of concept, but I’m retired now and really can’t be bothered dying on the same hill over and over again.
But I will try and update Nomad (the protocol, formerly Zot) to use a did: form. It’s just a replacement WebMTA for delivering JSON ActivityStreams which is nomadic aware. There’s still no chance of it ever getting into ActivityPub unless it’s invented by the Mastodon dictator.
Meanwhile the spec is in the public domain and there are working implementations and it federates with ActivityPub and nobody is holding a gun to anybody’s head.