The AT Protocol Harkens An Old Web Ethos (Or: how the other fediverse is developing) (vale.rocks)

submitted 18 hours ago by Blisterexe@lemmy.zip to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/70749935

An interesting blog post about how the AT protocol has it's own cool little ecosystem next to the fediverse.

It's really interesting how the way ATproto is both more and less as every service must follow a strict format to interact with others using the same format.

Like, ATproto has more variety than the fediverse, but the way they interact is a bit more strict, which means that a post from a lemmy analogue wouldn't show up on bluesky, but it also means that each platform often seems more polished.

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[-] arotrios@lemmy.world 9 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Looking at the specs, it's a promising concept, but its considerably less mature than ActivityPub. It's also struggling with some of the same challenges:

What is Missing?

Non-Public Data: mechanisms for personal and group data sharing are planned, and should support a wide variety of application functionality. These will be large additions to the protocol framework. We recommend against simply "bolting on" encryption or private content using the existing protocol primitives.

Protocol Governance and Formal Standards Process: once the basic protocol framework has been shown to work between multiple interoperating organizations, the plan is to bring the protocol specifications to an existing standards body (like the IETF) for revision and independent review.

The first point is one the Fediverse struggles with (like the fact DMs aren't private). The second is where ATProto falls behind ActivityPub - right now Bluesky is the only significant org running the protocol, and as such they're still establishing standards.

[-] Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 1 points 12 minutes ago* (last edited 11 minutes ago)

To your point about significant platforms, there are other significant platforms (by fediverse standards) like pckt, so it is not as bad as it used to be, bsky is just so large it makes them all look small in comparison. As for standards because of the way lexicons work platforms using standard.site, for instance, have their own thing going on that bsky can't change.

[-] markjamestwn1301@scribe.disroot.org 5 points 10 hours ago

Maybe the Fediverse should just be for social media, and leave DMs to like, XMPP or something? I dunno, just a thought. Feel like we're reinventing the wheel here.