4 ms·

I’m assuming this can only be used to chat with other users/instances of databag, for now. But is the vision to be able to “DM” with users on instances of mast

I’m assuming this can only be used to chat with other users/instances of databag, for now. But is the vision to be able to “DM” with users on instances of mastodon, Lemmy, etc?? (anything that supports activity pub)

vidarh 3y ago
Wanted to ask the same. For any new decentralized service, my first question is this and if not whether they've thought through why/why not. There are many legitimate reasons why someone might not, but if they've not thought through them and whether or not they could achieve the same with extensions to ActivityPub I'm instantly sceptical.
- balzack 3y ago
  The motivation for the project was mostly trying to see if a chat service could be run on low cost hardware, hence the reason for targeting RPi Zero. I would love to see other federated services running on home CE devices, but I don't see this happening with the execution requirements of services like mastodon or matrix. While those services are great and I use them, I think they lend themselves more to group hosting vs personal hosting.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    There's nothing in the ActivityPub spec that is particularly heavy. Mastodon is pretty much the heaviest possible ActivityPub option. If you want to handle just an individual account and especially if you want to handle mainly messenger style direct messages, you can do that with far lower requirements.
    - devpierre 3y ago
      If ActivityPub doesnt impose any restrictions on the data model and flow, then it should be possible to bridge an ActivityPub network.
      - vidarh 3y ago
        It imposes some limits, but they're pretty basic. Mastodon then adds a few more things. E.g. @vidar@galaxybound.com is my Mastodon handle, but that resolves to an ActivityPub actor via webfinger [1]. The ActivityPub actor is at [2]. Basically ActivityPub sets out a very basic skeleton for passing messages ("activities") between actors designated by URI's. Those messages must be JSON and has a few very basic requirements, such as having a "type". E.g. "Announce" is a type that corresponds to "boost" or "retweet", "Create" is a type that means you're creating another object such as a "Note" (toot/tweet) which follows the same general structure. Those messages can be addressed to specific other URI's representing audiences with to/cc fields. When you add that to your outbox, you or your instance also need to post them to your followers instances. So as long as you can receive POST's w/JSON, and return a list of JSON versions of messages, you have the basics. The JSON in ActivityPub is verbose but it's not very hard to generate, so bridging is likely doable. [1] https://webfinger.net/lookup/?resource=vidar%40galaxybound.com https://webfinger.net/lookup/?resource=vidar%40galaxybound.c... [2] https://m.galaxybound.com/users/vidar https://m.galaxybound.com/users/vidar but needs Accept: header: curl -H "Accept: application/activity+json" https://m.galaxybound.com/users/vidar https://m.galaxybound.com/users/vidar | jq .
- 3np 3y ago
  From a very quick look, the key-based identity might be what would require protocol-forking for Matrix and Pleroma chat, and non-trivial extension for XMPP, and thereby be the motivating factor of making a non-compatible protocol.
  - Arathorn 3y ago
    Matrix already has key-based identity in the works at https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/kegan/pseudo-ids/proposals/4014-pseudonymous-identities.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/keg... (and implemented in Dendrite at https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aany+pseudoid https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3A...). Matrix is set up to let folks go wild and change fundamentals like this; basically every Matrix Spec Change (MSC) is a small fork, which then gets merged into the main spec if it can be proven to work well in the wild.
remram 3y ago
No, I don't think this has nothing to do with ActivityPub.

vidarh 3y ago

Wanted to ask the same. For any new decentralized service, my first question is this and if not whether they've thought through why/why not. There are many legitimate reasons why someone might not, but if they've not thought through them and whether or not they could achieve the same with extensions to ActivityPub I'm instantly sceptical.

balzack 3y ago
The motivation for the project was mostly trying to see if a chat service could be run on low cost hardware, hence the reason for targeting RPi Zero. I would love to see other federated services running on home CE devices, but I don't see this happening with the execution requirements of services like mastodon or matrix. While those services are great and I use them, I think they lend themselves more to group hosting vs personal hosting.
- vidarh 3y ago
  There's nothing in the ActivityPub spec that is particularly heavy. Mastodon is pretty much the heaviest possible ActivityPub option. If you want to handle just an individual account and especially if you want to handle mainly messenger style direct messages, you can do that with far lower requirements.
  - devpierre 3y ago
    If ActivityPub doesnt impose any restrictions on the data model and flow, then it should be possible to bridge an ActivityPub network.
    - vidarh 3y ago
      It imposes some limits, but they're pretty basic. Mastodon then adds a few more things. E.g. @vidar@galaxybound.com is my Mastodon handle, but that resolves to an ActivityPub actor via webfinger [1]. The ActivityPub actor is at [2]. Basically ActivityPub sets out a very basic skeleton for passing messages ("activities") between actors designated by URI's. Those messages must be JSON and has a few very basic requirements, such as having a "type". E.g. "Announce" is a type that corresponds to "boost" or "retweet", "Create" is a type that means you're creating another object such as a "Note" (toot/tweet) which follows the same general structure. Those messages can be addressed to specific other URI's representing audiences with to/cc fields. When you add that to your outbox, you or your instance also need to post them to your followers instances. So as long as you can receive POST's w/JSON, and return a list of JSON versions of messages, you have the basics. The JSON in ActivityPub is verbose but it's not very hard to generate, so bridging is likely doable. [1] https://webfinger.net/lookup/?resource=vidar%40galaxybound.com https://webfinger.net/lookup/?resource=vidar%40galaxybound.c... [2] https://m.galaxybound.com/users/vidar https://m.galaxybound.com/users/vidar but needs Accept: header: curl -H "Accept: application/activity+json" https://m.galaxybound.com/users/vidar https://m.galaxybound.com/users/vidar | jq .
3np 3y ago
From a very quick look, the key-based identity might be what would require protocol-forking for Matrix and Pleroma chat, and non-trivial extension for XMPP, and thereby be the motivating factor of making a non-compatible protocol.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  Matrix already has key-based identity in the works at https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/kegan/pseudo-ids/proposals/4014-pseudonymous-identities.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/keg... (and implemented in Dendrite at https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aany+pseudoid https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3A...). Matrix is set up to let folks go wild and change fundamentals like this; basically every Matrix Spec Change (MSC) is a small fork, which then gets merged into the main spec if it can be proven to work well in the wild.

remram 3y ago

No, I don't think this has nothing to do with ActivityPub.