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>in what way can smaller players federate with ATProto or how the structure allows federation. Each of the pieces I've described (PDS, Relay, AppView) implemen

>in what way can smaller players federate with ATProto or how the structure allows federation. Each of the pieces I've described (PDS, Relay, AppView) implement the protocol specified at https://atproto.com/ https://atproto.com/. Anything that acts as an ATProto PDS can be used as an ATProto PDS, anything that acts as an ATProto Relay can be used as an ATProto Relay, and so on. I'm not sure I understand the question so pardon the tautology. The structure allows federation by design — a Relay will index any PDS that asks to be indexed; an AppView can choose the Relay it wants to get the data from (or skip a Relay completely and index PDS's directly); anyone can make their own AppView for an existing or a new app. That's how there are multiple AppViews (both for Bluesky app and for other ATProto apps) ingesting data via multiple Relays from many PDS's. There aren't many independent operators of each piece (especially outside of PDS self-hosting) but nothing is privileging Bluesky's infra. Additionally, Bluesky's reference implementations of each piece are open source. So people run them the same way you would usually run software -- by putting it on a computer and exposing it to the internet. To run a custom PDS, you can either use the Docker container provided by Bluesky (https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds) or implement your own (e.g. https://github.com/blacksky-algorithms/rsky https://github.com/blacksky-algorithms/rsky). Ditto for other pieces. >Reading through it, it just sounds like sharding/scaling for a centralized service that's meant to be owned and provided by a single entity. You're right in that the goal is to make it on par with centralized services in terms of UX and performance/scaling. However, it is decentralized. The picture at the end of this article might help: https://atproto.com/articles/atproto-for-distsys-engineers https://atproto.com/articles/atproto-for-distsys-engineers

HexDecOctBin 1y ago
I think what they are asking is: if I run a my own BlueSky AppView, how do I integrate with the bluesky.app so that users signed in on my AppView can interact with users on the the main AppView and vice versa? This is how most of us think about federalisation.
- danabramov 1y ago
  That's already the default behavior. You don't need to do anything special for that to work, it's what ATProto is designed for. Everything is always operating in a shared space by design. When people "post", their posts go to their PDS's, which means that every AppView ingests data generated by every other AppView by default. There is no way to tell who's using which AppView — in fact, you can log into any AppView and your profile will be there with all your posts.
- jauntywundrkind 1y ago
  AppViews do things like track likes, or replies. The AppView doesn't do that only for Bluesky data. It does it for any Personal Data Stores (user accounts with all their user data) that it knows about. When you "interact" with users elsewhere, all you do is generate new records on your own PDS. You generate a "like" entry, or a reply, on your own PDS. It's your pds, all your stuff goes there. The AppView sees that and indexes it, attaches that like or that reply in the AppView to the post you're reacting to.
- OneDeuxTriSeiGo 1y ago
  An appview is really just a service for hydrating content in the skeleton of posts that feeds return back to give to the user. The only things they do other than feed hydration are track notifications, (optionally) provide a search engine, (optionally) provide a CDN, and (temporarily until E2EE rolls out) handle DMs. So you can actually do things like the Red Dwarf [1] project which is a bluesky client without an appview. It's slower, you visibly notice request loading/pop-in, there's no notifications, and no search but it works with any other bluesky appview (since appviews are basically a lens into atproto rather than an independent service). -------- If you wanted to run your own infrastructure, instead you'd probably want to run your own PDS. Running an appview has its benefits of course but the main way you "self host" is to run a PDS. That's fairly trivial and people have run them on all kinds of constrained hardware (including a literal jailbroken microwave if I remember correctly). 1. https://tangled.sh/@whey.party/red-dwarf https://tangled.sh/@whey.party/red-dwarf

HexDecOctBin 1y ago

I think what they are asking is: if I run a my own BlueSky AppView, how do I integrate with the bluesky.app so that users signed in on my AppView can interact with users on the the main AppView and vice versa? This is how most of us think about federalisation.

danabramov 1y ago
That's already the default behavior. You don't need to do anything special for that to work, it's what ATProto is designed for. Everything is always operating in a shared space by design. When people "post", their posts go to their PDS's, which means that every AppView ingests data generated by every other AppView by default. There is no way to tell who's using which AppView — in fact, you can log into any AppView and your profile will be there with all your posts.
jauntywundrkind 1y ago
AppViews do things like track likes, or replies. The AppView doesn't do that only for Bluesky data. It does it for any Personal Data Stores (user accounts with all their user data) that it knows about. When you "interact" with users elsewhere, all you do is generate new records on your own PDS. You generate a "like" entry, or a reply, on your own PDS. It's your pds, all your stuff goes there. The AppView sees that and indexes it, attaches that like or that reply in the AppView to the post you're reacting to.
OneDeuxTriSeiGo 1y ago
An appview is really just a service for hydrating content in the skeleton of posts that feeds return back to give to the user. The only things they do other than feed hydration are track notifications, (optionally) provide a search engine, (optionally) provide a CDN, and (temporarily until E2EE rolls out) handle DMs. So you can actually do things like the Red Dwarf [1] project which is a bluesky client without an appview. It's slower, you visibly notice request loading/pop-in, there's no notifications, and no search but it works with any other bluesky appview (since appviews are basically a lens into atproto rather than an independent service). -------- If you wanted to run your own infrastructure, instead you'd probably want to run your own PDS. Running an appview has its benefits of course but the main way you "self host" is to run a PDS. That's fairly trivial and people have run them on all kinds of constrained hardware (including a literal jailbroken microwave if I remember correctly). 1. https://tangled.sh/@whey.party/red-dwarf https://tangled.sh/@whey.party/red-dwarf