Figure I should post this here as well.
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@mmasnick @mmasnick.bsky.social
I do believe that you do good work and I think you have the best interests of the Internet at heart. I disagree with your conclusions but I believe in your intentions.
I think you should re-read my post, and see whether it’s actively hostile, or just telling you something you don’t want to hear.
Regardless, please take my request about patents to heart. I think you are in a unique position to do some good on that front.
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@mmasnick I'm bridged, and even following your Bluesky account from here (thank you)! But the number of Bluesky users I can follow is miniscule. Asking people to follow a bridging account so I can follow them is hardly seamless. I have a similar frustration with Threads: having to contact friends and ask them to enable federation before I can follow them. I'm not sure what we do about the upset users you refer to, but siloes are currently trumping user experience across multiple platforms.
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@markdarb @mmasnick This. Unless it's opt-out by default, it's excruciatingly painful to get people to bridge. It's hard to explain, hard to make people trust what it is, hard to contact each and every person. It's a never ending battle to try and unfork the divided community, especially as waves of new folk join Bluesky and not Mastodon. Feels like in my community, Bluesky has very much been "winner takes all" and the bridge, while a useful band-aid, doesn't actually heal the rift.
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@markdarb @mmasnick I've not met anyone on Mastodon actively hostile to the bridge either. People in my circles all welcome it. I don't buy this notion there's a homongenous "fediverse" community even though it gets painted that way because of a noisy minority (I'm guessing minority) with a particular point of view.
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@evan @mmasnick Evan, as you and I have discussed directly in the past, all of the atproto specifications and core implementations are under free and open licenses. Specifically, MIT and Apache 2.0 dual-licensing, with Apache 2.0 providing patent protection. Furthermore, Patents have public record, and anybody can confirm we have not filed for any.
Neither you nor I are lawyers, but I don't think there are any grounds to spread fear/uncertainty/doubt about atproto and patents.
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@markdarb @mmasnick you’ve made several claims that make little sense to me. ActivityPub isn’t seamless there’s plenty of interop issues for platforms supposedly using the same protocol. The fediverse has long since been made up of bridges and protocols that aren’t ActivityPub irrespective of AP stakeholders being disrespectful af of the work of devs that have long contributed to the space. There shouldn’t just be one protocol there damn sure shouldn’t be one platform either.
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Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋replied to hallenbeck last edited by
@hallenbeck @markdarb @mmasnick There was a thread here https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/835 back in February, when the bridge's author announced he was preparing to launch it, with some Mastodon users saying very, very nasty things to him there…
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hallenbeckreplied to Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋 last edited by
I know, I saw that. I also listened to the podcast where @mike interviewed @snarfed.org. Worth a listen: https://dot-social.simplecast.com/episodes/ryan-barrett
I meant I've personally not met anyone actively hostile to it in my circles. It seems there's a quiet majority who are ok (or indifferent) with it.
But Mike (Masnick) said Bluesky users are fine with the bridge, so make it opt-out that side. Then explore with admins making it opt-out on selected, friendly fedi servers, too.
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@mackuba @markdarb @mmasnick @mike @snarfed.org
It seems logical on fedi, where different servers have different rules and governance, that some would be opt-out and some opt-in. I'd personally choose an opt-out server, but I can see why others would choose opt-in. That's kinda the point of being able to choose one's server, right?
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@hallenbeck your comments are dismissive. You clearly saw people were uncomfortable and upset yet you push forward for the own specific needs. There were people on Bluesky that didn’t want the bridge either as they don’t like the mastodon culture. Opt-in is respectful of consent not sure why you’re keen on going against that. If you care so much you can juggle multiple accounts on both platforms and or try to convince people to bridge their accounts
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@damon I do juggle accounts on both platforms, and I've put a TON of effort into asking people to bridge. It's a neverending, exhausing, sisyphean effort. Discovery is the problem. Waves of people in my communities coming over from Twitter to Bluesky. I just gave up in the end. It's not possible. Leads to a horribly fragmented community.
Keen on opt-out because @mmasnick said Bluesky users are cool with bridging. Keen on opt-out on fedi servers friendly to that policy...
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... Not keen on opt-out on fedi servers where people are uncomfortable with it. That's the point. A plurality of approaches and a choice for users.
P.S. "the mastodon culture" - no such thing. I don't buy there's some homogenised culture. The whole point is a multitude of cultures. It sucks if people think Mastodon is one thing.
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Re being respectful of consent, why not make every federated instance opt-in? How is Bluesky any different from any other federated instance? I can answer that: it's really not on a fundamental level.
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@hallenbeck it doesn’t suck if it comes across as one thing. It’s the dominant software running on servers, the two instances owned by the nonprofit makes up 30% of the entire fedi. So no it’s very reasonable people see it as one thing and when behaviour is similar irrespective of what server people are on that’s how it will be viewed
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@hallenbeck Opt-in was initially discussed and there were very vocal people that were against it including on Bluesky but nowhere near on like in Mastodon. Ryan respected peoples wishes and made it opt-in as that gives people actual consent. Not sure why we need to go in circles especially for your convenience. You can juggle multiple accounts, there are clients such as OpenVibe and SoraSns that support Bluesky and Mastodon accounts. That will allow you to manage your account from a single app, it’s not a perfect solution but better than making changes people fought for to appease your desires.
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@damon It sucks it we're all treated as a homogenous, single culture, because it's not true and we can do better.
Erin explores some of the potential here: https://www.wrecka.ge/fediverse-shoes/
My needs are different from yours - that's natural - so we can (or should be able to) choose different servers that suit our needs. It's a failure of the fediverse if one single "culture" decides for everyone what does and doesn't happen here. That not decentralised and goes against the grain of fedi.
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@evan @mmasnick Evan, every time you pull this bullshit, it pushes people away from the space. I’ve seen this behavior play out for months now, and frankly this plus the lack of stewardship and direction of the protocol, have left me to wonder whether the Fediverse or ActivityPub have an actual future. It’s demoralizing and embarrassing, and bad enough that I’ve largely considered throwing in the towel because of how this all makes me feel.
I have tried my best to be upbeat, supportive, and positive. But when I think of the current situation the Fediverse is in, especially in regards to ActivityPub and its lack of direction and stewardship at a high level, I visually imagine sticking a loaded gun in my mouth. Seriously! I don’t want to think of my 15 years in the space as a waste, but if you can’t grow a fucking spine and figure out how to move the ecosystem and protocol forward in a big way, then ActivityPub is toast. Yeah, Meta and Automattic and Ghost and Flipboard are building for it now, but they might end up being the only ones developing for it in the long term. With enough resources, any of them can switch to something else. Or just stop entirely.
It’s nice that you wrote a book, it’s great that you’re running a foundation, but your protocol is an unfinished product that relies on bespoke implementation and FEPs to even fucking function. You have an opportunity to humble yourself, draw inspiration from other efforts, and right the ship during one of the most pivotal moments of its history, and you’re fucking squandering it.
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@damon I know all that. This isn't about my convenience, it's about effectively building communities. Your needs are different from mine and my communities. Let's focus on how to accomodate the needs of different groups, not just one group. The beauty of fedi is a plurality of approaches, ideas, needs, wants.
Again, rheotrical question: why not make every federated instance opt-in if you want to respect consent? How is Bluesky any different from any other federated instance?
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@hallenbeck This I can get behind. I do agree things should be flexible and adaptive to all sorts of users needs. Apologies for the hostility, but I was there when on GitHub and Fedi how nasty and hostile people were towards Ryan. He took it like a champ but to me it was unacceptable and his mistreatment is something others have experienced on fedi. So, having an open discussion on making changes so things could be more convenient for you with the risk of them being harmful to Ryan doesn’t seem right. Erin also wrote these two https://erinkissane.com/blue-skies-over-mastodon https://erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-easy-and-fun-except-when-it-isnt
