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We need a federation of forges

blog.tangled.org

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Re: We need a federation of forges

#271

Post by tcfhgj »

malicka wrote: post #218
nightpool wrote: post #208

I'm a huge supporter of federation, but I've never understood the use-case for a "federation of forges". What data are the forges exchanging? Why should the forge for Blender have any connection to the forge for Ubuntu? Most of the value I get from Github is having a single login that I can take from project to project. Independent forges can get the same value simply by supporting social login, without needing the c…

If people want to find software, they search GitHub. If you self-host a forge, no one will ever find your software unless you’re a preestablished big name (like Blender). To avoid throwing your code into the void, you’re pretty much forced to mirror with GitHub, at least. To avoid this and make smaller forges as a block a viable competitor, there needs to be a singular network that solves discoverability and lets you…

> If people want to find software, they search GitHub.

people really do that?

Re: We need a federation of forges

#272

Post by tcfhgj »

nightpool wrote: post #255
hirako2000 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Git is decentralized by design. It can support federation, it just happens that GitHub solved the UI, issues, PR so that even new comer can come in and do git stuff and track issues on the screen. But centralized it. Federation would be closer to git, but not so decentralized that when one node goes offline you may not have any upstream to pull from, or not be able to find them. Git doesn't solve availability. Federa…

Not sure I understand, you're talking about mirroring git repo data between multiple different nodes? That seems unrelated to what's proposed in the OP--maybe you're seeing something I'm not?

if I fork a repository to my forge, I expect my forge to have an independent copy of the repo

Re: We need a federation of forges

#273

Post by jauntywundrkind »

renticulous wrote: post #221
graybeardhacker wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is irrelevant until it isn't. Then it isn't until it is. If we all do our part, X will become irrelevant.

Aren't we reinventing what were forums in pre smartphone days?

Those were all isolated places, where you needed an account for that specific forum (whereas you can use your PDS anywhere), where that forum held your data (whereas you hold your atproto data, and we all internetwork to see the aggregate), where you were subject to the moderation decisions of that forum (whereas you have control over your PDS (but not other people's clients)).

Pretty unclear what your comment is trying to indicate but it sure feels very different to me, and I've offered some characterizations for why.

More generally, atproto is useful for all kinds of tech, solves a cold start social network problem. Aren't we reinventing forums, and tv watching, and book reviews, and trail maps, and photo sharing, and streaming, and d&d, and key attestation, and file sharing, and publishing, and note taking and containers and git hosting? Yes. Yes we are. https://atstore.fyi

(Under a common protocol set, in a way that respects users unlike everything else that's happened online so far.)

Re: We need a federation of forges

#274

Post by jauntywundrkind »

cxr wrote: post #241
danabramov wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atproto isn’t “many servers sending messages to each other”. It’s structured more like RSS: 1) there’s an app-agnostic hosting layer (and anyone can run a host, a bit like personal site with RSS) 2) then there’s apps, which aggregate over data from all hosts (a bit like Google Reader or Feedly) So there’s no such thing as “defederating”. You don’t have many copies of Tangled beefing with each other. It’s more like yo…

> Atproto isn’t “many servers sending messages to each other”. It’s structured more like RSS Except that, crucially, RSS/Atom plays well with static nodes (e.g. personal websites generated with Jekyll/Hugo/whatever—or even written by hand[1]), and Atproto does not. (Nor does Mastodon; previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30862612 >.) It'd be great if the complexities needed to support the "Atmosphere" wer…

There's always some Gemini protocol faction that shows up to yell that everything is wrong and we have to keep hand assembling our packets by hand or it'll never work.

Atproto's PDS is the root idea that everything extends off of, is the "social filesystem" that you control. There's a protocol objective to be able to spread your data around widely and for folks to be able to cryptographically check that that data came from you (even if you have to change hosts or even if someone sneakernets your data around). That's going to have some complexity! But it allows aggregation, is essential to how we are able to syndicate data so widely in atproto. It's so important it's in the name: Authenticated Transfer protocol.

And that in turn enables systems like Tangled here to be built, that layer stop the personal data servers, and relays. These work because there is identity.

If you need your static site to be on atproto (yay!), you can just have one of the various PDS hosts (such as Bluesky or eurosky or black sky or npmx) host the PDS for your. Since it is authenticated and user sovereign, you can permissionlessly move to a different host whenever you please, should that go awry. It's unclear to me why static site needs are an interesting or useful target that social networking ought conform to.

If you want to make a simpler network where we don't have those guarantees, please go right ahead. It feels to me like a snap reaction though that doesn't bother weighing what we have gotten or why things are this way, that is reflexively demanding.

Re: We need a federation of forges

#275

Post by miki123211 »

embedding-shape wrote: post #254
rafram wrote: post #209

How will this end up going any better than Mastodon has? Near inevitabilities: - All the small instances defederating from the largest due to politics/spam/annoying noobs/whatever, effectively killing the easiest path to entry into the community - Pointless debates about whether it’s OK to federate with instances that host pirated content, disagreeable politics, furry VNs, etc., which everyone has to take a side (the…

> - Pointless debates about whether it’s OK to federate with instances that host pirated content, disagreeable politics, furry VNs, etc., which everyone has to take a side (the correct side) on Why do you have to take a side / take the correct side? Can't you either just not take any side or take whatever side you feel like and go with that?

On Mastodon, if you take the wrong side, those on the correct side will defederate from you. Not merely because you host (or don't host) the content they like (or dislike), but because you merely enable (or discriminate against) those who host that content.

Of course, all sides are wrong in somebody's eyes; so no matter what you do, you will be defederated from by at least somebody.

The way Mastodon works, defederation irreversibly breaks all follow relationships, without notifying those involved. If you disagree with the decision, you can migrate to another server, but you won't get your followers / followees back, not without everybody involved doing a lot of manual drudge work. This is just one way in which the myth of "users are free to do what they wish, if they disagree with the admins, they can migrate somewhere else" breaks.

To make matters worse, there's no way to see which users that you may wish to follow are / will be hidden from you if you choose a given instance. Defederation lists are a (somewhat open) secret; it's good practice to announce defederations, but there's no automated API endpoint to see them, so there's no way to answer the question of "who am I going to lose if I migrate from x to y."

Re: We need a federation of forges

#276

Post by throw_a_grenade »

embedding-shape wrote: post #254
rafram wrote: post #209

How will this end up going any better than Mastodon has? Near inevitabilities: - All the small instances defederating from the largest due to politics/spam/annoying noobs/whatever, effectively killing the easiest path to entry into the community - Pointless debates about whether it’s OK to federate with instances that host pirated content, disagreeable politics, furry VNs, etc., which everyone has to take a side (the…

> - Pointless debates about whether it’s OK to federate with instances that host pirated content, disagreeable politics, furry VNs, etc., which everyone has to take a side (the correct side) on Why do you have to take a side / take the correct side? Can't you either just not take any side or take whatever side you feel like and go with that?

They'll then defederate also from you. The argument goes, you're a nazi/facist/racist/*phobe, because you associate with (== did not defederate from) the designated nazi/facist/racist/*phobe.

Yes, it's that toxic. Go subscribe #FediBlock hashtag if you don't believe me.

Re: We need a federation of forges

#278

Post by embedding-shape »

miki123211 wrote: post #275
embedding-shape wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Pointless debates about whether it’s OK to federate with instances that host pirated content, disagreeable politics, furry VNs, etc., which everyone has to take a side (the correct side) on Why do you have to take a side / take the correct side? Can't you either just not take any side or take whatever side you feel like and go with that?

On Mastodon, if you take the wrong side, those on the correct side will defederate from you. Not merely because you host (or don't host) the content they like (or dislike), but because you merely enable (or discriminate against) those who host that content. Of course, all sides are wrong in somebody's eyes; so no matter what you do, you will be defederated from by at least somebody. The way Mastodon works, defederati…

> On Mastodon, if you take the wrong side, those on the correct side will defederate from you. Not merely because you host (or don't host) the content they like (or dislike), but because you merely enable (or discriminate against) those who host that content.

Ok, so? People block you all the time because they don't agree with you, why is that a problem? If people don't want to hear what you say, shouldn't they be allowed to not listen?

Personally, I don't understand that point of view of blocking people who you disagree with, for me the point of the internet is to find different views and perspectives, but I'm also fine with others filtering out whatever I say, doesn't really impact me either way.

If you want no rules what you say, run your own instance. Depending on what you say, some people will want to listen, others will want to filter your opinion away, I don't think either sides are "wrong" for that, it's just like in real life. If you want to use someone else's instance, you follow their rules. It mostly isn't harder than this.

Re: We need a federation of forges

#279

Post by miki123211 »

cxr wrote: post #241
danabramov wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atproto isn’t “many servers sending messages to each other”. It’s structured more like RSS: 1) there’s an app-agnostic hosting layer (and anyone can run a host, a bit like personal site with RSS) 2) then there’s apps, which aggregate over data from all hosts (a bit like Google Reader or Feedly) So there’s no such thing as “defederating”. You don’t have many copies of Tangled beefing with each other. It’s more like yo…

> Atproto isn’t “many servers sending messages to each other”. It’s structured more like RSS Except that, crucially, RSS/Atom plays well with static nodes (e.g. personal websites generated with Jekyll/Hugo/whatever—or even written by hand[1]), and Atproto does not. (Nor does Mastodon; previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30862612 >.) It'd be great if the complexities needed to support the "Atmosphere" wer…

Atom is pull, Atproto is push.

Atom was designed for news, before social media existed, where 15+ minute polling times were (borderline) acceptable. Atproto was designed for social media, in an age of Twitter users getting their news in seconds, to the point of being able to comment on live events play-by-play. There's no coming back from that world.

With that said, I wish both Mastodon and Atproto supported opt-in pull-based, static sources.

Re: We need a federation of forges

#280

Post by embedding-shape »

throw_a_grenade wrote: post #276
embedding-shape wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Pointless debates about whether it’s OK to federate with instances that host pirated content, disagreeable politics, furry VNs, etc., which everyone has to take a side (the correct side) on Why do you have to take a side / take the correct side? Can't you either just not take any side or take whatever side you feel like and go with that?

They'll then defederate also from you. The argument goes, you're a nazi/facist/racist/*phobe, because you associate with (== did not defederate from) the designated nazi/facist/racist/*phobe. Yes, it's that toxic. Go subscribe #FediBlock hashtag if you don't believe me.

Ok, so what? Let those people block you then, sounds like people you probably don't want to interact with anyways?

I've seen that, and I'm not sure what's supposed to be toxic. It's community-organized filtering of unwanted views, for the people who want to engage in that. I don't agree with that, so I don't participate or do that myself, and I also don't seem to face any negative consequences because I'm not participating in that. What am I supposed to be sad about here, that some people don't want to listen to my views?

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