Is there a reason why all the services, that use the ActivityPub protocol don’t have a unified API?
None of the mastodon apps allow me to log in with a lemmy/kbin account.
Also none of the lemmy apps allow me to log in with a kbin account.
Even though kbin has both mastodon (microblogging) and lemmy (threads, communities) functionality.
Also, Pixelfed recently introduced “login with Mastodon”, but all it really does is just create a new user on it’s instance and copy over the mastodon followers and profile info.
Why can’t we just have one account to rule them all?
We’re working on it! Here’s the spec-in-progress: https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/
These things take time. We’ll get there.
Barely understood it, but thanks for your work!
Pixelfed actually got a sign in with Mastodon account working:
yeah… and all it really does is create a new pixelfed account, while copying over the mastodon bio and followers.
Here is the reason: https://xkcd.com/927/
Only if W3C people thought about all this… before releasing ActivityPub protocol to the public.
Because they are still different apps with different needs, architectures and formats. They just synchronize most of their content between each other.
they just synchronize
But to be able to sync with each other, they still have to agree upon a standard, right?
Yea, but that’s just a lowest common denominator (e.g. it doesn’t include things like lemmy community sidebars), and also generally not appropriate for a client application. ActivityPub transmitts all events that are happening (posts, likes …) between servers, and they are supposed to index and aggregate things (e.g. sum up votes, sort posts). It’s just not feasible to expect the same from a mobile app for example, you’d have to at least create another standard for that.
So services end up implementing their own client APIs to fit their needs. And imo that’s actually a good thing, because it allows them to try out features and specialize on different use cases. But afaik the ActivityPub people are working on another standard for client APIs, at least it’s on their radar.
A unified API and a single login, are two separate things.
A single federated authentication could be a good idea. But the various federated services are different enough that they should have different APIs.
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With extensive work, these tools can all be made to work together under a single username. Every tool needs to be made aware of every other tool, and a lot of the actual federation code needs to be externalised to an all-encompassing server. This can be done without breaking any spec and without becoming incompatible with the rest of the Fediverse, but it’ll require a LOT of work.
You basically summarized my original plan for communick. The basic idea is:
- Take the existing services, provide commercial hosting
- Use the revenue to fund development of protocol-level integrations, contribute back to open source
- Build tools to make it easy for companies to migrate away from Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/WhatsApp and own back their internet presence again
- ???
- Profit / Destroy Big Tech.
Unfortunately, the amount of people willing to pay for commercial providers of social media is embarrassingly small, so I am stuck at step 1 and the best I could do is to build a SSO system for Matrix/Mastodon/XMPP, to let people use the same credentials on all “communick.com” servers.
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imagine tech brand like LTT coming in with a federated forum for customer/community interaction
Exactly! This also applies for old media as well. Why is it that the NYT, WaPo, WSJ, Deutsche Welle, Globo, Telemundo, Forbes et caterva haven’t still set up their own AP servers? I guess they seem as more interesting to go to Twitter and bitch about Elon Musk instead of just emptying the platform? Why can’t they become providers of a service and say “all subscribers get a free account”?
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the entire Fediverse is equal to what, two percent of Twitter’s userbase?
I’d honestly say it’s even less and I’d even wager that the amount of bots here are even higher (percent-wise) than Twitter. I’m working on a search engine for the fediverse now, and I was surprised with the amount of bot accounts and mirror servers that I am finding.
you don’t want a journalist’s socials to be in the hands of their boss.
I feel quite the opposite. If a journalist is really independent, then they can go on to host their own content. But as long as they are writing under the editorial guidelines of some larger institution, I want this association to be well defined and transparent.
People don’t want Twitter do die and wither away.
I am fundamentally opposed to any ad-funded business. I honestly believe that moment a lot of the issues in our society can be traced back to the moment that we made it possible for people to make a living by just collecting eyeballs instead of focusing on quality work at a small scale. So, yeah, I very much want Twitter/Facebook/Google to die and wither away.
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I’m not an expert, those who know more, please correct me.
Regarding logging-in with one account into another instance, I think that’s not how it’s intended to work. But I’m oot sure I understand what you’re asking.
Regarding the unified client API, 2 days ago Manton Reece (Creator of Micro.blog) wrote a response to Dave Winer’s open voicemail in where he says:
There is a lot of work to do, even outside of ActivityPub. As Dave mentions, we also need a common posting API. The most popular Mastodon client apps do not support either ActivityPub or Micropub. But a lot of progress can be made focusing on interoperability for the server-to-server part of the API. That should be the top priority with Threads set to join the fediverse.
