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Am I being dumb? What's described here is basically EMAIL. 1. fetch all personal inbox messages, 2. subscribed outbox messages, 3. and allow for sendin

Am I being dumb? What's described here is basically EMAIL. 1. fetch all personal inbox messages, 2. subscribed outbox messages, 3. and allow for sending messages to the fediverse. Especially as it's all proxied through a local SMTP server. So: 1. Like an email inbox? 2. Like mailing-lists ? 3. Like... sending EMAIL to anybody or mailing-lists. I must be missing something?

goodpoint 4y ago
You missed that ActivitySub is meant to be a client designed to translate AP into emails! """ ... agnostic ActivityPub client ... Open your email client of choice to add the local mail server to your list of email accounts. ActivitySub will translate SMTP messages into ActivityPub messages. Incoming ActivityPub messages will be stored into a Maildir which is read by email clients like Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook. """
WorldMaker 4y ago
It's an adapter application for ActivityPub, the standard that backs the "fediverse" and apps like Mastodon, PeerTube, etc, to email. ActivityPub/the fediverse is already designed very similar to how email works so a lot of the terminology intentionally overlaps: ActivityPub at the raw level has a concept of an inbox and an outbox on the server. Most clients to ActivityPub do a lot of stuff "in the middle", taking data from the Inbox and feeding it into complex (usually Postgres) databases and then present it all with mostly bespoke patterns: as Twitter-like feed (in Mastodon's case) or a YouTube-like site (in PeerTube's case). This client intentionally sticks to the raw "email-like" flow and applies it directly to "ancient" email technologies: using SMTP to send outgoing messages to the ActityPub servers in the "fediverse" and dumping things from incoming messages into a classic style Maildir email directory rather than a database of any other sort (so you can read the "fediverse" in just about any traditional email client as if it was email).

goodpoint 4y ago

You missed that ActivitySub is meant to be a client designed to translate AP into emails! """ ... agnostic ActivityPub client ... Open your email client of choice to add the local mail server to your list of email accounts. ActivitySub will translate SMTP messages into ActivityPub messages. Incoming ActivityPub messages will be stored into a Maildir which is read by email clients like Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook. """

WorldMaker 4y ago

It's an adapter application for ActivityPub, the standard that backs the "fediverse" and apps like Mastodon, PeerTube, etc, to email. ActivityPub/the fediverse is already designed very similar to how email works so a lot of the terminology intentionally overlaps: ActivityPub at the raw level has a concept of an inbox and an outbox on the server. Most clients to ActivityPub do a lot of stuff "in the middle", taking data from the Inbox and feeding it into complex (usually Postgres) databases and then present it all with mostly bespoke patterns: as Twitter-like feed (in Mastodon's case) or a YouTube-like site (in PeerTube's case). This client intentionally sticks to the raw "email-like" flow and applies it directly to "ancient" email technologies: using SMTP to send outgoing messages to the ActityPub servers in the "fediverse" and dumping things from incoming messages into a classic style Maildir email directory rather than a database of any other sort (so you can read the "fediverse" in just about any traditional email client as if it was email).