We really enjoyed the discussions from @404mediaco and @mike
There is a bright future for the web.
#fediverse #mastodon #activitypub
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1q2SNDvphz8vGOwaapqR6x?si=gguO_leqRsC32LpA6gVj2A
Fediverse tech roadmap 2025
One year ago I published Fediverse tech roadmap for year 2024. How did we do?
- Data portability. FEP-ef61 has advanced significantly. Compatible IDs were introduced, which make portable objects fully compatbile with existing ActivityPub implementations. Identity can be represented using any DID method, not just did:key
. Security of the protocol has been studied extensively. And most importantly, there are now two interoperable implementations: Streams and Mitra.
- End-to-end encryption. An end-to-end encryption system is being developed for social networking platform Enigmatick. It is based on the Olm protocol, which is also used by Matrix.
- Connectivity. A big improvement came from Mastodon, which now notifies its users when relationships are severed by moderation actions. ActivityConnect AP-to-AP bridge was developed, but it didn't see much use, indicating that the problem it attempts to solve is not serious.
- Moderation / spam resistance. Two different conversation moderation mechanisms emerged: Conversation Containers (implemented by Streams and Hubzilla) and Interaction Policies (implemented by GoToSocial).
- Scalability. The number of platforms implementing FEP-8b32 is slowly increasing but the biggest ones still don't sign their activities (or use non-standard LD signatures). Some preliminary work on optimizing media delivery was done in FEP-1311: Media Attachments.
- Plugins. Lemmy developers are discussing WASM plugins in an RFC. A WASM-based MRF was implemented in Kitsune.
- Discovery. Mastodon introduced fediverse:creator OpenGraph tag. Relay protocols were documented in FEP-ae0c, and ActivityPub Discovery report was published. Several projects are working on Starter Packs similar to ones used by BlueSky platform.
- Developer experience. Fun Fediverse Development project continues to improve, and now provides support tables for many protocol features. ActivityPub and WebFinger and ActivityPub and HTTP Signatures reports were published, as well as FEPs about Origin-based security model and various features such as OpenWebAuth and Emoji reactions. FEDERATION.md is becoming more popular, the number of projects using it nearly doubled in 2024.
- Groups. Conversation Containers were implemented in Streams and Hubzilla, and FEP-171b: Conversation Containers was published. FEP-1b12 and Conversation Containers have many similarities, and the work on further alignment is ongoing.
- URL handlers. No significant progress.
- Synchronization of replies. Both FEP-1b12 and Conversation Containers naturally lead to synchronized conversations.
- Markets. No significant progress.
- Quoting. FEP-e232 is now supported by 8 platforms.
- Forge federation. Forgejo implemented federated stars, and the development of other features has started.
I think the work on these problems should continue in 2025, especially in the following key areas:
- Conversations and groups. FEP-1b12 and Conversation Containers are good solutions and may eventually become one because their differences are mostly superficial.
- Data portability and Nomadic identity. A lot of work still needs to be done. Some aspects of FEP-ef61 are underspecified, for example media storage. A fully featured nomadic client (FEP-ae97) has not been developed yet and migration of data between implementations has not been demonstrated. I would also like to see experiments with peer to peer networking (FEP-ef61 is designed to be transport agnostic, this means HTTP transport can be replaced with something else, such as Iroh) and cross-protocol interop (identities created for Nostr and ATProto are compatible with FEP-ef61).
- ActivityPub C2S API. Although standard client-to-server API is not popular among developers, the work on it should continue because nomadic client-to-server API (FEP-ae97) is very similar.
- End-to-end encryption. I think that adoption of solutions developed for other protocols is a good idea. A custom solution may take many years to develop.
- Developer experience. Code reuse in not common in Fediverse: most developers implement ActivityPub primitives themselves. Libraries for all programming languages need to be created, along with online validators, testing tools and good documentation.
⚠️ Scam - Check your followers
What scam?
You discover someone following you claiming to be Israeli or Palestinian, with 1-2 post claiming they need money, along with a heart-filled story.
It is a scam because it is the same story (seen 4 versions) and with the same links (I saw 7). All this over many different accounts.
They follow 100's. The goal is someone will see their profile, believe the story, feel bad, and send money.
#Scam #Misskey #Fedi #Fediverse #Mastodon #Facebook #ActivityPub
The last "big" code thing I need to get done before the alpha test of my current @fedify project is the task queue - make sure routine data updates happen, consider individual importance and urgency, respect external API rate limits, etc.
But that's super intimidating so I'm currently procrastinating by making it a cute lil home page instead. 🙃
#FediDev #ActivityPub #Fedify #WebDev
Ktistec release v2.4.4 fixes a few things in the prior release and introduces at least one killer feature!
Fixed
Changed
I'm spending some cycles looking at the size of the server executable. You can read about my approach to reducing Crystal Language executable size and build time here.
#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang
Added type filters to the feed in #Smithereen.
Salut les gens,
Si jamais vous avez besoin d’un toot régulier de prévision #météo dans votre fil #Mastodon, vous pouvez consulter la liste suivante et vous abonner à l’un des comptes de villes : https://fr.fedimeteo.com
Les infos viennent de https://open-meteo.com alors méfiez-vous tout de même si vous avez besoin de l’info pour lancer un satellite. Mais si c’est pour savoir combien de pulls mettre ou choisir entre tong, All Stars ou New Rock, ça devrait le faire !
Ich bin etwas verwirrt warum jetzt mein #Wordpress mit #ActivityPub Plugin von mir erwartet das ich Likes und Repost als Kommentar freischalten soll. 😑
soso #mastodon hat immer noch probleme damit wenn auf der gleichen #domain auch noch #peertube #pixelfed liegt - dann spinnt das ganze follow system....
dummes tool - leider bin ich noch dümmer was #activitypub oder #ruby betrifft - sonst hätte ich den entwicklern schon längst geholfen den #bug zu fixen
hihi
@atomicpoet I take it a bit further; I want to be able to build my platform using an agreed upon protocol from scratch. #ActivityPub lets me do that. I'm skeptical about BlueSky's commitment in that regard.
I added the JSON-LD signature verification routines to my #ActivityPub crate here. It works well enough to show me the signature status of activities that arrive with RsaSignature2017 attributes.
I don't see much point in writing a signing function; I'll spend some time with FEP-8b32 and see if I can figure that out.