NodeBB

@silverpill @julian In addition, more particularly, it appeared highly unlikely that Mastodon would ever implement something first implemented in the "Anti-Mastodons". The Fediverse server applications that are the farthest from Mastodon while still largely being capable of the same things as Mastodon. Mastodon's nemeses, so-to-speak. The stuff created by the guy who speaks out the most radically against what Mastodon does.

#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta

@silverpill Mastodon implements something that's already implemented in Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte. Incredible.

#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Mastodon #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #FEP_8b32

@HubertManne @Evan Prodromou

Friendica: AGPLv3, but was under the MIT license until 2011.

Hubzilla: MIT license.

(streams): Public domain. Intentionally. I'm not kidding here.

Forte: MIT license.

Third-party add-ons may have their own licenses.

#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #MITLicense #PublicDomain

@Mark Andrew I guess that, more often than not, the only new developments that are widely welcome are those that happen on Mastodon, that still don't make Mastodon feel different, and that don't introduce features to Mastodon that are (considered) bad on 𝕏.

This alone is the reason why many Mastodon admins hold on to older Mastodon versions for their dear lives: They want to boycott new Mastodon features which they don't like, but they don't have what it takes to soft-fork or even only hard-fork Mastodon and remove the new features.

Now, when it comes to developments in the Fediverse outside of Mastodon, they tend to be even more nerve-grating for Mastodon users because they often aren't in line with Mastodon and its culture at all. That is, many Mastodon users don't even notice that these features exist unless these features directly hit their timeline. But once they do, they're considered bad new developments even though they've actually been around for much longer than Mastodon itself.

For example, quote-posts and full-text search. Mastodon users tend to be staunchly against both because they're used to harass and dogpile minorities on 𝕏. If at all, they're only okay with these if they come with an opt-in, and/or if server admins can turn them off entirely.

If only they knew that Friendica has had both since May, 2010, five years and eight months longer than Mastodon has even existed. That Friendica has been search-indexing and able to quote-post any public Mastodon toot since Mastodon's very launch. I guess they'd demand the immediate destruction of Friendica or at least its complete and permanent defederation.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #FullTextSearch #Mastodon #Friendica

@gabboman the wafrn dev (streams) has been mentioning people invisibly since its inception in October, 2022, AFAIK.

It comes from a culture where everyone in a conversation receives all comments in the conversation without mentions. Where mentions only serve to visibly signalise whom you're replying to. Where more than one mention are considered clutter.

But it was born into a culture where only those receive replies who are visibly mentioned. Where the concept of receiving anything without being visibly mentioned or following the author is completely alien to the point of being entirely unimaginable.

That is, maybe one of (streams)' various predecessors (there have been seven different repositories between Hubzilla and the streams repository) has actually introduced this at some point between 2018 and 2022.

Of course, Mastodon users freak the hell out whenever something happens that isn't supposed to happen on Mastodon. This already starts with "toots" with over 500 characters.

Guess why (streams) has three built-in ways of blocking the entirety of Mastodon in self-defence, two exclusive to the admin, one also available to users. Even though all except one admin-level counter-measure cause considerable collateral damage.

CC: @Evan Prodromou

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #Mastodon #Streams #(streams) #MastodonCulture #MastodonCentricity #MastodonNormativity

@Evan Prodromou The issue at hand is that especially Mastodon users tend to welcome new developments. Unless, of course, these developments make their beloved Mastodon feel less like the Mastodon they got to know and love. This includes old developments that predate Mastodon, but that they've only just noticed.

Like, having spent three and a half years in a Mastodon-only bubble and then receiving the first comment from Hubzilla.

Consider this:

@Bill Statler

Yes, I have seen strong negative reactions to new software, and old software, and anything that doesn't look like Mastodon, and anything that does look like Mastodon. We are an opinionated bunch.

Bill is on (streams), one of the most innovative Fediverse server applications, developed by the creator of Friendica and Hubzilla.

Friendica and its descendants are very much not like Mastodon. They've got their own cultures which, again, are very much not like the culture that Mastodon has been cultivating since 2022, that Mastodon's users consider the "Fediverse culture", and that many Mastodon users try hard to force upon the whole Fediverse.

Our kind have seen hostility of the likes that Mastodon users could hardly believe.

(streams) is the only Fediverse server application that comes with one channel-level and three server-level features that can be used as countermeasures against the entirety of Mastodon with different levels of collateral damage. This has to say a lot.

Bill runs the biggest discussion group on (streams). It used to have ActivityPub deactivated for the specific purpose of keeping overzealous Mastodon fanatics out. The only reason why ActivityPub is on now is for Forte users to be able to use the group, too.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Mastodon #Streams #(streams) #MastodonCulture #MastodonCentricity #MastodonNormativity

@Patrick Leavy Well, nomadic identity, as it is, does not use the same login credentials on all servers. That'd be a security risk.

For example, I have this Hubzilla channel here cloned across two Hubzilla hubs: hub.netzgemeinde.eu and hub.hubzilla.de.

A Hubzilla account requires an e-mail address and a password. It can be different on different hubs, and in fact, it should. I may or may not use different passwords on these two hubs.

But the account only serves as a login, as an access to the channel(s) hosted on them. It has nothing to do with my identity. Thus, it also does not know or use my short name.

Nonetheless, on these two independent accounts which may or may not have completely different login credentials, I have two instances of this Hubzilla channel here which are (or should be) constantly kept perfectly identical to one another. (In fact, I have another channel with a separate identity that's cloned across the same two hubs. Nomadic identity at Hubzilla/(streams)/Forte level comes with the side-effect that you can have what amounts to multiple separate Mastodon accounts, but all under the same login.)

So you can use the same e-mail address and the same password. But you don't have to. And, truth be told, you really shouldn't.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Hubzilla #NomadicIdentity

@Patrick Leavy You don't even have to build it. It already exists in the Fediverse. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Hubzilla, (streams) and forte offer you not only full nomadic identity, but also groups. Optionally private groups. That can optionally hide from Fediverse account/channel directories. Optionally with any number of moderators from anywhere on Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte.

They have the most advanced permissions systems in the whole Fediverse.

They support enclosed threaded one-post-many-comments conversations with thread titles like on Facebook, like on Tumblr, like on any blog out there, like in any forum out there.

The character limit on Hubzilla is over 16 million; on (streams) and Forte, it's over 24 million. The number of options in polls is practically unlimited, as is the number of images that can be embedded in messages. And with "embedded," I mean like in a blog post or on a website with text above and below the images.

At the same time, they're part of the Fediverse. Hubzilla is based on Zot6/an older version of Nomad; ActivityPub can be activated. (streams) is based on Nomad; ActivityPub is optional, but activated by default. Forte is based on ActivityPub. Any Fediverse software that recognises groups recognises their groups as such.

Here is an article with a number of tables in which I've compared the features of Mastodon, Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte:

https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/0a75de76-eb27-4149-b708-f20b2f79d392.

CC: @silverpill

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #FacebookGroups #Groups #FediGroups #FediverseGroups

@Patrick Leavy A whole lot. Sorry, but this will be very very very long again.

I don't know if you've read my previous (very long) commentary. But just implementing one or two FEPs won't get you the same full-blown nomadic identity (https://joinfediverse.wiki/Nomadic_identity) that Hubzilla (what I'm writing from right now; https://hubzilla.org; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubzilla; https://joinfediverse.wiki/Hubzilla) has had since 2012. And having this level of nomadic identity has to be the goal.

What has to be done is:

Take something like Mastodon.
Non-nomadic.
Where your account, your login, equals your identity.

Make your identity cloneable

Now, before you can make identities nomadic, you have to uncouple them from the login, from the account.

Mastodon has to introduce a sort of container for your identity, like the channels that Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte have always had (https://joinfediverse.wiki/Channels_(Hubzilla_&_(streams))). This is necessary so that a future nomadic Mastodon will know what to clone and what not to clone. For example, cloning your password is dangerous nonsense.

So, everything that makes up your account except for your login credentials will have to be moved into this container.

• your short name
• your long name
• your profile images, including alt-texts
• your profile
• your followers
• your followed
• your toots, including stats like faves, boosts etc.
• copies of the conversation trees of all your toots, including stats like faves, boosts etc. as well as attached files for each message
• all files you've ever attached to toots
• your settings
• your filters
• your mutes
• your blocks
• your server blocks
• etc.

Essentially, everything except for your login credentials will have to be moved from directly residing on your account into that box.

Change your login

Also, your login will have to change from short name + passphrase to e-mail + passphrase. Your short name is part of your identity, it's in the container, it will be cloned, so it can't be used to log you in anymore.

In order for this to work, half of Mastodon's server backend will have to be rewritten.

Decentralised IDs

Next, Mastodon must switch from the Webfinger IDs that it uses now to decentralised IDs as per FEP-ef61. For a while, I guess, it will have to use both next to one another. Then it will have to phase out its Webfinger IDs.

The decentralised IDs must be tested against other Fediverse software that already understands them or that's nomadic itself: (streams), Forte, Mitra, Tootik. For example, @silverpill of Mitra and @Mike Macgirvin of (streams) and Forte must test whether their software correctly understands Mastodon's DIDs. And the Mastodon developers must test whether Mastodon correctly understands the DIDs from Fediverse server applications that already use them.

Once it has gotten rid of its Webfinger IDs, the next phase can start.

Implement cloning within Mastodon

The central element of nomadic identity is not the ability to move your identity. That's only a byproduct of cloning your identity.

A clone, in nomadic identity, is a full backup of the container with your identity in it. A real-time, live, bidirectional backup that you can log into and use just like the "original". The clone always has the same idea as the original, regardless of which server it's on.

The key elements of clones and cloning must be implemented and tested:

• cloning an identity container to a different server after registering a new, blank account there
• cloning an identity container to a different server where you already have an account with a different containerised identity
• anything that happens on the original being sync'd to the clone
• anything that happens on the clone being sync'd to the original
• clone going offline, things happening on the original, clone coming back online, things that happened on the original being reliably sync'd to the clone
• original going offline, clone still working with the ID based on the original's domain
• original going offline, things happening on the clone, original coming back online, things that happened on the clone being reliably sync'd to the original
• making additional clones of an identity container that has already been cloned at least once
• the whole syncing shebang from the original to any number of clones
• the whole syncing shebang from one of the clones to the original and also directly to the other clones
• declaring one of the clones the new original, thus changing the ID of both the former original and all clones

Implement moving within Mastodon

Only when cloning works reliably, we can talk about moving, even though that's what everyone on Mastodon is giddy about.

Why? Because moving involves cloning. It's an automated process. At least it is on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, and it really should be one on nomadic Mastodon.

Basically, first you make a clone.
Then you declare the clone the new original, and your old original is demoted to a clone.
Then you have to wait until your change of ID from changing the original has federated to all your followers and followed and everywhere and whatnot.
Then, one last sync so that both the former-clone-now-new-original and the old-original-now-clone are really identical, and you won't lose any data.
Then your old-original-now-clone is deleted. We don't want to leave any dead stuff behind, now, do we?
Lastly, if your old account where your old original used to reside has no other identity on it, the whole account is deleted. In nomadic containerised identity, accounts cannot/should not exist with no identity container on them.

Cloning and moving beyond Mastodon

The last possible step is still utter science-fiction: Cloning or moving from Mastodon to something else that's nomadic and understands FEP-ef61.

Cloning or moving from Mastodon to Mitra. From Mastodon to Tootik. From Mastodon to (streams). From Mastodon to Forte. Oh, and maybe also back to Mastodon.

The difficult part is not only to make Mastodon capable of cloning identity containers to other nomadic software. And to make Mastodon accept identity containers from other nomadic software being cloned to Mastodon. I mean, this would be difficult already. (streams) and Forte are vastly, vastly different from Mastodon.

No, the difficult part is to make these four capable of cloning from or to someplace else. As it stands now, you can only clone from Mitra to Mitra, from Tootik to Tootik, from (streams) to (streams), from Forte to Forte. Even cloning between (streams) and Forte has never been possible, even though they're very similar. Oh, and cloning from and to Hubzilla is another story because Hubzilla doesn't have FEP-ef61 implemented.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Mitra #Tootik #NomadicIdentity

@Patrick Leavy

Is the #ActivityPub protocol any closer to having data portability?

Have you read about nomadic identity yet? (https://joinfediverse.wiki/Nomadic_identity)

There is only one Fediverse server application that offers full-blown server-side nomadic identity via ActivityPub, and that's Forte (https://codeberg.org/fortified/forte). This won't change anytime soon. For there is one critically important thing that has never happened yet, and that's the conversion of non-nomadic, account-equals-identity, ActivityPub-based Fediverse software to fully nomadic, identity-uncoupled-from-accounts, ActivityPub-based Fediverse software.

Forte itself came to exist in 2024 as a fork of something colloquially called (streams) which is already nomadic, but based on its own protocol named Nomad with ActivityPub as an optional secondary protocol. And (streams) is a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork?) of Hubzilla, the first nomadic Fediverse software, created in 2012 under the name Red and based on a precursor of Nomad.

A very long-term dream is a fully nomadic Fediverse. Not only would all Fediverse server software be every bit as nomadic as Hubzilla, but it'd be possible to move and even clone identities between different server applications. As it stands now, moving and cloning is only possible within Hubzilla, within (streams) and within Forte.

And how about single ID usable in different apps?

This would only be possible in an entirely nomadic Fediverse where you can clone your identity from anywhere to anywhere. And even then you'd have to first register a local account on whichever server you want to use and then clone your existing identity onto this account on this server.

Otherwise, this is not possible. And it isn't possible at all without registering a local account on whichever server you want to create.

I mean, I've read this request countless times.

• Create an account on mastodon.social.
• Go to peertube.tv.
• Log onto peertube.tv with your mastodon.social credentials. Right away. Without first creating an account on peertube.tv.
• Upload a video credited to patrickleavy@mastodon.social.

There are lots of reasons why this is technologically impossible.

First of all: Where would peertube.tv know your mastodon.social login credentials from? Your name and at least the salted hash of your passphrase?

Besides: Where would peertube.tv store your data?

On mastodon.social where your account is?

And, pray tell, where would mastodon.social store a video the same way as PeerTube stores it, all the way to PeerTube's trademark peer-to-peer load balancing? Also, how and why do you think should mastodon.social authorise peertube.tv to directly, remotely write to mastodon.social's local database and data storage?

On peertube.tv?

Well, that'd require peertube.tv to have a record of your identity in its local database. It can't store a video locally. and reference it locally through mastodon.social's local database. So peertube.tv's server backend would have to know you. It would have to have your identity.

Where would it get that?

Again, no, it can't just simply reference mastodon.social's database for that. It'd need that record in its own local database.

Do you really believe that peertube.tv could go and leech all your account credentials from mastodon.social and automagically store them locally? Do you really believe mastodon.social will let it do that?

And do you seriously believe that if free, open-source, amateur-developed server software can easily do that, proprietary, closed-source, professional, military-intelligence-grade (as in FBI, DHS, CIA, NSA, STRATFOR, MI5, MI6, Mossad, Shin Bet), ultra-high-end espionage and surveillance software like Palantir or NSO Pegasus has no way at all of doing that?

No, there's literally only one possible way for peertube.tv to get to know you and know whom this video belongs to if you upload one. And that's by you registering a local account on peertube.tv. Manually.

Okay, now you (or someone else) may come and say, "But Pixelfed can literally do that! I can log onto Pixelfed with my Mastodon account!"

No. No, you can't. Sorry to say, but you can't.

Pixelfed pretends you can. For the sake of convenience and ease-of-use. But it's bogus. All show. A smoke screen.

What Pixelfed actually does when you "log into it with your Mastodon account": It takes your Mastodon login name, it takes your Mastodon passphrase, and it registers a local account on that Pixelfed server with your Mastodon login credentials.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #PeerTube #Pixelfed #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #NomadicIdentity

@silverpill Generally, if (streams) has something implemented, ActivityPub-wise, then so does Forte. And vice versa.

This means that Forte should be mentioned under Hubzilla and (streams).

#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #ActivityPub #Streams #(streams) #Forte

@Evan Prodromou

- Dozens of FEPs under development

...and they're usually only implemented by those who maintain them. These and their works, in turn, mostly stay in the shadows while the bigger players in the Fediverse remain blissfully unaware of them.

Pretty much exactly what @silverpill has been doing for a while now.

- New work like quote posts from Mastodon

Technology taken over from GoToSocial.

The principle of how these quote-posts are done taken over from Misskey.

And quote-posts themselves were introduced to the Fediverse as early as May, 2010, by what's known as Friendica today.

This is what @silverpill meant with:

Features that already exist somewhere in Fediverse presented as new inventions.

Mastodon presented their quotes as if they had just introduced an all-new, totally revolutionary feature to the Fediverse. In fact, however, the Fediverse had had quote-posts for a decade and a half at that point.

Let's all face it: The main hindrance in Fediverse development is Mastodon. It's a painfully incomplete implementation of a hopelessly outdated version of the ActivityPub spec. At the same time, its cult-like followers see it as the one and only gold standard and the reference implementation of ActivityPub. They believe that Gargron has invented both ActivityPub and the Fediverse because, frankly, that's what the Mastodon folks want everyone to believe.

If the Fediverse had some fair competition, then Mastodon would have to catch up with software like Misskey or Akkoma or Mitra and eventually powerhouses like (streams) or Forte. But what Mastodon lacks in features, it makes up for with sheer market power. The loudest voices that promote the Fediverse don't actually promote the Fediverse; they only promote Mastodon.

The features of the non-Mastodon Fediverse are unknown and outright unimaginable both on Mastodon and outside the Fediverse. And just about everyone believes that Mastodon is as perfect and fully-featured Fediverse software as it ever comes. Pretty much the only ones who don't are those who daily-drive non-Mastodon Fediverse software.

This actually goes as far as Mastodon users trying their hardest to force e.g. Friendica users to throw away their own culture, switch to Mastodon's culture and abstain from using some 80% of Friendica's features because they aren't covered by Mastodon's culture. At the same time, Mastodon users staunchly refuse to adopt any part of any non-Mastodon Fediverse culture. This means that even if non-Mastodon Fediverse devs introduce new features, they'd better not let Mastodon users know.

And so Mastodon can get away both with a laughable set of features, with completely ignoring not only FEPs, but also large parts of the ActivityPub spec, with advertising features which just about the whole rest of the Fediverse has had for years as completely new original inventions of their own, and with implementing non-standard stuff and forcing the rest of the Fediverse to implement "proprietary", non-standard Mastodon developments.

CC: @julian

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #MastodonCentricity #MastodonNormativity

@silverpill In a hilarious twist of fate, this gives (streams) and Forte an unfair advantage. They're nearly identical, they have the same maintainer, but they're two separate implementations, also seeing as Forte uses ActivityPub for nomadic identity, and (streams) doesn't and still uses its own Nomad protocol for it.

Since Mitra appears to implement (streams)/Forte features one by one and cast them into FEPs, that's three implementations already. Two if nomadic identity via ActivityPub is involved. And if Hubzilla happens to have it, too, we've got up to four implementations.

Yes, ActivityPub is only an optional add-on on Hubzilla and (streams), but an implementation is an implementation. And whatever they do on Nomad that federates has to get out through ActivityPub one way or another.

It'd be even more hilariously skewed, hadn't Mike discontinued the five apps between Hubzilla and (streams) on New Year's Eve 2022.

CC: @slyborg @Evan Prodromou @Connected Places @ArneBab @Alex Chapman

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #ActivityPub #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Mitra

@slyborg @Connected Places If Mastodon really tries to shape ActivityPub around Mastodon and only Mastodon, you can expect quite some opposition from and head-butting with players such as Flipboard, Ghost and especially Automattic (WordPress).

The same who must have pressured Mastodon into "better" support of Article-type objects. That's limited to Mastodon's previews now including the summary as well, but the full long-form HTML rendering with all bells and whistles which not only they wanted is something that Mastodon will never touch.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta

Because Mastodon's HTML "sanitiser" "sanitises" away almost all HTML. Because HTML rendering isn't Twitter-style, purist, old-school, original-gangsta microblogging. The Mastodon devs staunchly refuse to implement sensible HTML rendering for this very reason.

There are only few exceptions. Bold type, italics, bullet-point lists (numbered lists are converted) etc. And even these have only been implemented since Mastodon 4. The entire first Twitter migration wave and large parts of the second one landed in a seemingly plain-text-only Fediverse.

But quotes of any and all kinds are still "sanitised" away.