Figure I should post this here as well.

Jaz (IFTAS)

"You are creating an account on a platform that can connect to thousands of other platforms and networks. Would you like your account to be connected to:

1. The entire Internet
2. This network or protocol
3. As few people as possible"

Each platform can come at this howsoever it makes sense, but if the new account chooses (1), immediately opt the account in to any bridges the platform knowns about, or offer them each as an option to opt in to during onboarding.

2/

Jaz (IFTAS)

@snarfed.org I understand there are /today/ bumps in the road that don't make this easy, but it feels like this is the end product, so let's accept and take on the fact that as we build platforms and protocols for people, those people will want to express themselves and participate in different ways, and that's a good thing.

None of these options are either/or, everything we're talking about is simply lacking decision support and some protocol or client enhancements.

3/

Jaz (IFTAS)

@snarfed.org Let's build a network that accommodates major publishers, popular bloggers, introspective carpenters, people who want to talk about knitting but not Formula 1, the cautiously exploring 19 year old who wants to play in the sandpit but is fearful of being seen by their parents/peers/church, people who want to speak and practice Catalan...

All of these people deserve a social network that meets THEIR needs. Let's centre on the people and go from there.

4/

Jaz (IFTAS)

@snarfed.org platforms and client applications have a duty of care to the people they want using their products. This includes people who have a different lived experience than them.

We seem to continually be wrapped up in finding the "right" solution, when I believe the better path is finding the many solutions and presenting them in a clear, unbiased interface that helps people do whatever it is they want to do.

Open or allow-only federation - both options are good options.

5/

Jaz (IFTAS)

@snarfed.org opt-in or opt-out bridges; very blocky servers vs open servers, all good options in the right context.

There is no global town square, and if there is, very few people want to be there.

Let's re-centre on providing meaningful, valuable social interactions that may differ from our own desires and experiences.

I want a human-centred world wide web with a focus on safety and personalisation. It's on the protocol, platform and client devs to help us get there.

Tim Chambers

@thenexusofprivacy @hallenbeck @markdarb @mmasnick

Well, simple point is that both web polls, or fediverse polls that are not randomized samples of the whole population have like three or four sources of bias and don't tell us much.

I'd think by now we can look at data: the share of fediverse population on servers that do block BlueSky bridges versus who do not, I'd think would be the best source to figure out the wide scale fediverse view. Not sure anyone. has tried to see that yet.

Melvin Carvalho

@mmasnick interesting article. I do believe in a broader social web, with each system having its own trade offs.

Why not join the w3c social web community group, and make your case. It is open to all, and we welcome a diversity of opinion.

Social Web Incubator Community Group

(www.w3.org)

The Nexus of Privacy

@tchambers I certainly agree that fediverse polls are far from scientific and have multiple biases ... and, these polls are from months ago, and didn't have a huge number of responses. Still, they're a data point, and consistent with other qualitative data (some people here have a very strong antipathy to Bluesky) ... but yeah, certainly by no means proof of anything.

The share of fediverse population on instances that don't block Bridgy Fed is useful in that it tells us the percentage of people here who could opt in to Bridgy Fed ... but I'm not sure what it tells us beyond that. Did Eugen consult with a wide variety of people on .before deciding whether or not .social and .online should block Bridgy Fed? hahahaha. So at best it tells us what admins have decide to do ... but also, in a lot of cases not blocking it reflects not having thought about it yet (as opposed to making a decision not to block it) and I'm not sure how that could be separated out.

@hallenbeck @markdarb @mmasnick

Steve Bate

@evan @deadsuperhero One alternative.. talk about how the problems with #ActivityPub will be addressed in a reasonable time frame given it’s not actively maintained and the evolution of it is “closed” (tightly controlled by the W3C). I think this would be more effective for attracting developers than FUD and misinformation about other protocols and attacks on those with more inclusive perspectives. That strategy doesn’t help ActivityPub, in either the short or the long term.

Evan Prodromou

@steve @deadsuperhero hey, Steve. Thanks for popping into the conversation.

It's simply untrue that ActivityPub is unmaintained. We handle reports of errors with errata and an editor's draft. The CG published reports on profiles for Webfinger and HTTP Signature this year, and we have task forces for forums, E2EE, data portability, trust and safety, and discovery open now.

We also have the FEP system for building new extensions, and a process for incorporating extensions into the main context.

Evan Prodromou

@steve @deadsuperhero finally, the CG is working to create a charter for a new working group to develop a backwards-compatible, 1.1 revision of the spec. We'll have a discussion about it at tomorrow's meeting, which you should definitely attend!

Evan Prodromou

@steve @deadsuperhero why do you think it's misinformation to point out that Bluesky is a venture-funded startup and that ActivityPub is an open standard from a recognized standards body? Those are straight-up facts.

It's also true that we need to be careful with patents on protocols from private companies. Even when developers have the best intentions, investors often try to squeeze value out of the company with patents. One of the benefits of open standards orgs is patent protection.

Nik | Klampfradler 🎸🚲

@evan Thanks for keeping clarifying these things over and over again. I am myself somewhat tired of (knowledgeable) people not recognizing a corporate walled garden when they see one.

Evan Prodromou

@steve @deadsuperhero You should check with the Bluesky team and their investors on their multiprotocol strategy. Do they really envision a future in which Bluesky is a small part of a larger Social Web, connected through bridges? Or is the point to be the *only* distributed social networking protocol? I don't see why investors would put $36M into the second- or third-place no-strings-attached open protocol, but maybe you've got a different set of experiences of venture capital than I do.

Karl Fogel

@evan @bnewbold @mmasnick My understanding (I am not a lawyer) is that pro-freedom patent pledges can be legally risky even for well-intentioned companies, unfortunately.

A company can make an internal decision to never enforce any of their patents, but then find themselves the target of incoming patent infringement claims for which the best defense is a counterclaim: "Oh yeah? Well, you're infringing some of ours. So how about we sit down and make a cross-licensing deal and call it even?"

Since competing companies tend to be in similar lines of business, the chances of them having mutually infringing patent claims are much better than random. Thus, having some patents in your back pocket -- even if you don't want nor intend to use them -- becomes a reasonable defensive tactic.

And it's not so simple to write a pledge that just says "We won't use our patents against anyone unless they use theirs against us first", either. What if another company uses patent infringement claims to restrict the options available to one of your partners / resellers / customers / whatever -- but it is you who have the patent portfolio that is able to make credible counterclaims? Since you weren't the one directly attacked, you'll now be violating your public pledge if you use your patents to protect freedom. Oops.

Mutual defense pools like OIN can help to address this transitive collective action dilemma, but they don't fully solve it. Fundamentally, the more legally binding public statements a company makes about what they won't do with their patents, the more they preëmptively tie their hands in some potential future patent-related dispute that is forced upon them by an outside party.

(There are, IIUC, other insidious things about the nature of patent law that make it hard for companies to even talk openly about what their plans are for their patents, or why they have acquired them, etc. Everything you say is there for your opponent's lawyers to pick apart some day, and it's hard to forecast the technical intricacies of every lawsuit or lawsuit-adjacent negotiation you might be involuntary involved in in the future. Open-ended promises are inherently risky.)

For these reasons, I am not judgemental about a company's patent portfolio, only about their actual patent behavior. It's wonderful & laudable when they make binding pro-freedom public promises -- but I hope that they do so with great care, and that they retain their ability to actually use whatever patent portfolio they may have to defend the commons when needed.

It's bad that we have a system that requires these counterintuitive tactics, but it's no particular company's fault that we're all operating in a bad system.

Evan Prodromou

@kfogel @mmasnick @bnewbold One way that we do things in the protocol space is to participate in standards organizations that have a patent licensing process. You can see the W3C's here: https://www.w3.org/policies/patent-policy/ There's a lighter policy for W3C community group reports: https://www.w3.org/community/about/process/final/ The IETF is less particular; it has an informal goal of not using patented tech but does allow it in some cases: https://www.ietf.org/process/ipr/

Evan Prodromou

@kfogel @mmasnick @bnewbold A patent pledge from Bluesky would make it possible for others to examine their work and apply their findings to other projects, which was the point of Mike's original post (that experimentation helps the whole ecosystem). The other option is to proactively bring their own work to a standards organization that has some patent pledge or disclosure framework. It'd be wonderful for the Bluesky team to bring ideas for improving ActivityPub directly to the SocialCG at W3C.

Evan Prodromou

@kfogel @mmasnick @bnewbold All said, I think it's a hard decision on the part of Bluesky. The protocol is their whole raison d'etre and making this kind of proactive pledge would be difficult. However, for those who don't work for the company or have a financial stake in it, knowing that we can use their findings for other projects is very helpful. If that's a priority, and if there's money in the bank, it's probably worthwhile to use their immense font of patent openness experience.

Evan Prodromou

@kfogel @mmasnick @bnewbold I should be clearer: Mike is a board member at Bluesky and has been covering patent use and abuse for decades. There is probably not another person on the planet who has done better work in this area.

patents – Techdirt

Posts about patents written by Dark Helmet, Joe Mullin, and Mike Masnick

Techdirt (www.techdirt.com)

Steve Bate

@evan @deadsuperhero The "simple truth" is that no changes have been made to the AP Rec since 2018 despite numerous bug reports and extensive community feedback. There's currently no W3C group with the authority to make any changes. For at least those reasons, I think it's fair to say it's currently unmaintained. I know there has been some talk about chartering a WG to do a minor update. FEPs are not W3C, are not AP-specific and are a separate, informal process. But, of course, you know that.