Can someone explain to me how it makes any sense for Pixelfed to be a thing that has its own accounts, rather than being an ActivityPub client whose GUI just happens to be image-focused?
Apropos of nothing, I remember some guy who spent most of the 90s having people tell him that it was insane to combine a mail reader and a usenet reader into the same app, because they are completely different software platforms that serve completely different intents and have different feature sets.
Oh wait, that was me. The guy was me.
█▓▒░ @jwz I kinda _thought_ it was a little odd that I could add THIS account as a "friend" and see my image posts over there.
@fortyseven @jwz activitypub is a protocol for exchanging information between of servers. Mastodon is focused on short text posts. Pixelfed is focused on images, with portfolios, galleries and the like. Different type of server for a different job.
@Colman @fortyseven @jwz
But we can post images on Mastodon ...
@Klaxun @Colman @fortyseven @jwz … and that is why I keep posting them there
@jwz Been having similar thoughts. I think it's is different because the server has different capabilities. I think this is more evident for PeerTube. However, wouldn't it been wonderful if I could use a variety of services to publish content through my single Fedi identity.
@jwz agreeing with @ParadeGrotesque - ask the man himself. but a theory: specifically to capture IG refugees w/o having to explain how ActivityPub works?
@peachfiend @jwz @ParadeGrotesque "What do you mean I have to sign up for Mastodon to post my pictures?"
@editer @peachfiend @jwz @ParadeGrotesque
More like "What do you mean I have to sign up for Mastodon again to post my pictures?"
@ParadeGrotesque @jwz @dansup a couple things come to mind:
* There's no generic "activitypub client" API right now (although several alternative servers are intentionally compatible with mastodon's client api, making it a de-facto standard)
* Mastodon's media handling isn't great - servers typically have rather limited max image size and silently re-code uploaded images. So an artist or photographer would probably want to have an account on a server customized for higher quality media sharing anyways.
@kepstin @ParadeGrotesque @jwz @dansup There exist a client to server spec for ActivityPub, which mastodon and most of the #fediware doesn't implement
@kepstin @ParadeGrotesque @jwz @dansup You have just described an ActivityPub implementation where server supports large media. Which is totally possible, if somebody is willing to host such huge volume.
@jwz I've been thinking the same thing about @bookwyrm. If I was a better developer I'd try to hack something together that puts their web interface in front of something like @gotosocial so I could have one AP identity for all this stuff.
@jwz I would guess that if Pixelfed instance admins want to make their instances walled gardens and defederate with other fediverse instances, or if possible be unfederated by default and approve of federation requests manually, then the accounts would be less redundant.
@jwz In some ways, that's what it is: you can follow Mastodon accounts from Pixelfed and just see their picture posts.
But IMHO it comes down to having the ability to make different design decisions than Mastodon, which is important when you're trying to serve a different medium. The first time you ask for a feature from Mastodon and they say no, your choices are to start a new project like Pixelfed or fork.
Well, your regular text-based fediserver would scream in panic about having to host so many images
so you need an implementation defined server api instead, and mastodons implementation of it sucks ballz
and since accounts are stuck at the provider, you are stuck with multiple accounts, just like e-mail, but even worse
@jwz ActivityPub C2S is missing a few bits. Rather than fill in the gaps, most fedi devs have decided to rewrite the same delivery-server logic over and over and over and over and over and o
@jwz It's a distinct failing of the system, I think. In theory, you can follow mastodon accounts on pixelfed, and vice versa, but the affordances live with the base service/UI that you sign up for. There's no federated identity where (e.g.) a mastodon account can be used to give you combined access to a pixelfed (or other) service.
It's one of the reasons I haven't signed up for any other Fedi services -- I can't be arsed to manage multiple logins.
Mastodon, Pixelfed, Friendica are 3 examples (of many) of completely different software platforms that serve completely different intents and have different features sets that mirror/mimic their contemporaries like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. The difference is that the former share a common backend component that allows you to interact with each other across the various platforms, whereas the latter do not.
/Continued
You don't sign up on all of them. You sign up on the one, or few, that provide the services and features you're interested in using. And you use that, or those, to interact with anyone on any activitypub based server, running any of the dozens and dozens of different activitypub based software platforms.
That's not a flaw of activitypub. That's its primary feature.
/Continued
If you enjoy a Twitter like experience and want that kind of an experience on the fediverse, you sign up for a mastodon account or one of the other Twitter style micro blogging activitypub platforms.
If you want more of a picture focused Instagram style experience, sign up for a pixelfed account.
The beauty of the fediverse is that it's really whatever you want it to be. You got options. Which can be overwhelming, for sure. I think it's great though.
or, hear me out: you sign up for one account, like email. you can then use whatever apps you want with that same account.
mastodon, pixelfed, etc don't all need to be separate accounts on separate servers. just like we don't need a separate Web for chrome vs firefox -- they let you browse the same Web.
I feel like I've had a reasonably decent grasp of the way things currently work in practice. I'm trying to make sure I'm wrapping my head around how it would work based on this new information you've given me.
Would you liken this to like a single sign-on system? When someone follows you, they follow your sign-on handle and they would receive anything you posted from any service while logged in with that handle? Wouldn't that need a centralized sign-on service of some sort?
@finner yeah, that's pretty much it
you have an actor on social.example and you use clients like mastodon.example or pixelfed.example as you feel like it
people follow your actor on social.example and your actor on social.example can send out arbitrary activities to those followers. these activities are generated by the clients (mastodon.example, pixelfed.example, etc) and handed off to your outbox on social.example
this is like using thunderbird or outlook which don't do raw SMTP themselves.
ActivityPub is a lot like RSS, where you follow people and their posts get sent to you, and you view it in your Feed Reader (or in this case, fediverse app).
This is different than a federated single sign on system, such as OpenWebAuth or OpenID. There are some fediverse platforms, such as Hubzilla, Streams, and Forte, that support federated single sign on. In that case, you can use your existing fediverse identity to log into other websites, and view and comment locally.
@scott yeah I've read a bit about the Zot protocol with nomadic identity for hubzilla. It's pretty neat.
I think the one reason that got developers so hung up on the application server model is because everyone assumed that the client needed to have an inbox URL to listen to requests all the time, which led to the idea that AP *requires* the push-based flow.
This will hopefully change this year, though. I started working on the ideas I've laid out on https://raphael.lullis.net/a-plan-for-social-media-less-fedi-more-webby/ , I just hope I don't go broke before I get something usable out of it.
I was just talking about this here. I think I even mentioned.
https://fedia.io/m/fediverse@lemmy.world/t/1437745
Is there any future where we could see this being the future of activitypub?
@TheFederatedPipe it could happen in maybe 10 years, idk — it requires philosophical and cultural changes on parts of fedi devs, to stop building monoliths that clone popular centralized apps, and start building for the Web instead. things like facebook and twitter are not built with an open decentralized web in mind. they are built for keeping you in-app. copying their design means copying their assumptions.
@TheFederatedPipe the other thing that keeps most devs from adopting C2S currently is a lack of existing infrastructure, and some unfilled gaps in the user experience that require extensions to fill in. we also need wider standardization of things like authorization and authentication, especially cross-domain. having a reference server would probably help a lot, but it’s a chicken-and-egg situation a bit…
You know? As much as I love the fediverse, things like this kind of disappoint me? I'm not sure if that is the correct way of saying it. Like not everything is actually how it was promised. But I guess is better than the other option, hopefully we get a lot of this things sort out.
@TheFederatedPipe yeah, it’s the idea that things could be better but they arent :/
twitter imo set back online social communication by at least 15 years
Agree, I kind of feel the same about Mastodon sometimes, like they in someway they make the development for a brighter fediverse harder because they are not willing to implement things making other services not implement them out of fear of not working with Mastodon.
@TheFederatedPipe @jwz @darkling @finner @trwnh We need to have more implementations of the ActivityPub API, and in particular the read-write parts of that API.
@darkling@mstdn.social @jwz@mastodon.social it's possible with client side shenanigans, which is what this person is asking. If pixelfed was a fedi client you could log into it using any given fedi server (including mastodon ones) and scroll using a pixelfed UI
@jwz We know you can use the Mastodon UI to look at a Pixelfed server, but what happens if you use the Pixelfed UI to look at a Mastodon server?
@jef@mastodon.social @jwz@mastodon.social you only see posts with images, a pixelfed server pulls all the post data like any other instance but it removes any non-media posts before showing it to the user end
@jwz
Ohnoo
You cannot be as paranoid as reality demands you to be.
@jwz Hail Eris!
@jwz BRB just putting the finishing touches on my NNTP/ActivityPub gateway.
(It would not surprise me to discover such a thing exists, and someone’s using Mozilla in a VM to access it.)
@waider @jwz Illuminant is the NNTP to ActivityPub gateway you can run today! https://koldfront.dk/git/illuminant/about/
I am installing this today! Now I have to see if I can find a copy of MT-Newswatcher!