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What reason does Bluesky give for not opening up their AppView code? Another notable component that is closed source is the discovery feed generator, where at

by xrisk 2y ago

What reason does Bluesky give for not opening up their AppView code? Another notable component that is closed source is the discovery feed generator, where at least there is some reason.

muscomposter 2y ago
what else? profit by means of doing work that benefits first and foremost the private proprietors of the closed source if they gave it away (which used to be unfeasible until the digital era) they feel they’re loosing their valuable effort which they’re wont on concentrating, not diluting.
verdverm 2y ago
The App View frontend is open source: https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app Much of the backend is open source as well: https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/tree/main/packages https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/tree/main/packages What is not are the extra services they run to provide a better and faster UX. Even if it was open source, it likely costs 10s of thousands to run per month (they have moved largely to "onprem" hardware instead of the cloud aiui)
- nightpool 2y ago
  That's the frontend code, it doesn't include the backend API services, which are closed source.
  - verdverm 2y ago
    Which is what I said in the second sentence
    - nightpool 2y ago
      AppView is a specific term of art within the Bluesky federation architecture: https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view, you were incorrect in identifying the public frontend repo as the AppView.
      - verdverm 2y ago
        A frontend is (can be) part of an App View. It is quite literally the app you view the network through. There can also be headless app views and app views which have no backend
        half-kh-hacker 2y ago
        this is not correct
      - verdverm 2y ago
        The glossary specifically calls out the UI as part of an app view. Can you explain why it is not according to you?
  - half-kh-hacker 2y ago
    the backend (the AppView) can be found here: https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/tree/main/packages/bsky https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/tree/main/packages... there are various supporting services written in Go as well https://github.com/bluesky-social/indigo https://github.com/bluesky-social/indigo
- half-kh-hacker 2y ago
  that's not the appview, that's the client
  - verdverm 2y ago
    App View is a bit fuzzy of a term. To me it seems like a combination of frontend, backend, custom lexicon, and supporting services. There isn't really another place in the spec or design where clients or browsers fit in, which do in fact provide a view of the network via an app.
    - verdverm 2y ago
      "UI" is part of the definition they give in the glossary https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view
dingnuts 2y ago
when I read the spec it seemed like the operator of an AppView & Relay would be most in need of compensation for their hosting costs due to the amount of demand on those components so I believe the spec allows an operator to implement their own AppView & monetize it as that operator sees fit, so that they can afford to operate the service and maybe even make money off of it so that they can make it their full time jobs.
- verdverm 2y ago
  It seems this way to me as well. ATProto fundamentally changes how monetization works in social media by removing lockin. It's going to be interesting to see what emerges from this design decision. Another interesting way to view ATProto is that it could be a collection of headless features and network browsers that leverage those feature providers.
iameli 2y ago
I asked this and got > We did a backend rewrite from postgres to scylla and it has a bunch of deployment specific stuff, but is functionally identical to the open source postgres version. Its not really a "v2" in terms of new features, we just made it make use of our hardware really well[1] [1]: https://bsky.app/profile/iame.li/post/3l7e3jfqit22s https://bsky.app/profile/iame.li/post/3l7e3jfqit22s
- nightpool 2y ago
  Thanks, so are both the Postgres and Scylla versions maintained in terms of new features? I wasn't aware that AppView v1 was open source, and the most recent info I'm aware of on the topic is https://alice.bsky.sh/post/3laega7icmi2q https://alice.bsky.sh/post/3laega7icmi2q, https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/discussions/2961 https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/discussions/2961 and https://docs.bsky.app/docs/advanced-guides/federation-architecture https://docs.bsky.app/docs/advanced-guides/federation-archit..., and everything I've heard about Bluesky was that open source appview is "still coming".
  - psionides 2y ago
    It's not coming, it never went away… As I understand it, the "business layer" with all the logic is above the data later, shared by the Postgres and Scylla versions, and the data layer just makes queries to the database. I think they are using the Postgres version locally for development.

by xrisk 2y ago

What reason does Bluesky give for not opening up their AppView code? Another notable component that is closed source is the discovery feed generator, where at least there is some reason.

muscomposter 2y ago

what else? profit by means of doing work that benefits first and foremost the private proprietors of the closed source if they gave it away (which used to be unfeasible until the digital era) they feel they’re loosing their valuable effort which they’re wont on concentrating, not diluting.

verdverm 2y ago

The App View frontend is open source: https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app Much of the backend is open source as well: https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/tree/main/packages https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/tree/main/packages What is not are the extra services they run to provide a better and faster UX. Even if it was open source, it likely costs 10s of thousands to run per month (they have moved largely to "onprem" hardware instead of the cloud aiui)

nightpool 2y ago
That's the frontend code, it doesn't include the backend API services, which are closed source.
- verdverm 2y ago
  Which is what I said in the second sentence
  - nightpool 2y ago
    AppView is a specific term of art within the Bluesky federation architecture: https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view, you were incorrect in identifying the public frontend repo as the AppView.
    - verdverm 2y ago
      A frontend is (can be) part of an App View. It is quite literally the app you view the network through. There can also be headless app views and app views which have no backend
      - half-kh-hacker 2y ago
        this is not correct
    - verdverm 2y ago
      The glossary specifically calls out the UI as part of an app view. Can you explain why it is not according to you?
- half-kh-hacker 2y ago
  the backend (the AppView) can be found here: https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/tree/main/packages/bsky https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/tree/main/packages... there are various supporting services written in Go as well https://github.com/bluesky-social/indigo https://github.com/bluesky-social/indigo
half-kh-hacker 2y ago
that's not the appview, that's the client
- verdverm 2y ago
  App View is a bit fuzzy of a term. To me it seems like a combination of frontend, backend, custom lexicon, and supporting services. There isn't really another place in the spec or design where clients or browsers fit in, which do in fact provide a view of the network via an app.
  - verdverm 2y ago
    "UI" is part of the definition they give in the glossary https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view

dingnuts 2y ago

when I read the spec it seemed like the operator of an AppView & Relay would be most in need of compensation for their hosting costs due to the amount of demand on those components so I believe the spec allows an operator to implement their own AppView & monetize it as that operator sees fit, so that they can afford to operate the service and maybe even make money off of it so that they can make it their full time jobs.

verdverm 2y ago
It seems this way to me as well. ATProto fundamentally changes how monetization works in social media by removing lockin. It's going to be interesting to see what emerges from this design decision. Another interesting way to view ATProto is that it could be a collection of headless features and network browsers that leverage those feature providers.

iameli 2y ago

I asked this and got > We did a backend rewrite from postgres to scylla and it has a bunch of deployment specific stuff, but is functionally identical to the open source postgres version. Its not really a "v2" in terms of new features, we just made it make use of our hardware really well[1] [1]: https://bsky.app/profile/iame.li/post/3l7e3jfqit22s https://bsky.app/profile/iame.li/post/3l7e3jfqit22s

nightpool 2y ago
Thanks, so are both the Postgres and Scylla versions maintained in terms of new features? I wasn't aware that AppView v1 was open source, and the most recent info I'm aware of on the topic is https://alice.bsky.sh/post/3laega7icmi2q https://alice.bsky.sh/post/3laega7icmi2q, https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/discussions/2961 https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/discussions/2961 and https://docs.bsky.app/docs/advanced-guides/federation-architecture https://docs.bsky.app/docs/advanced-guides/federation-archit..., and everything I've heard about Bluesky was that open source appview is "still coming".
- psionides 2y ago
  It's not coming, it never went away… As I understand it, the "business layer" with all the logic is above the data later, shared by the Postgres and Scylla versions, and the data layer just makes queries to the database. I think they are using the Postgres version locally for development.