Should a single company control the Social Web?

bryan newbold

other folks have raised similar concerns in the past. you can see an open and and collaborative conversation from October 2023, resulting in license changes in November 2023:
https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto-website/issues/218

Evan Prodromou

@bnewbold @hallenbeck that shows some real proactive engagement, Bryan.

Evan Prodromou

@bnewbold @hallenbeck awesome!

Evan Prodromou

@bnewbold @hallenbeck one thing that we could do, if you wanted to, is publish the AT Protocol specs as a CG Report. That process is pretty lightweight, but includes granting licenses on trademark, copyright, patents, etc. It would be a quick way to make this move.

Bruce Elrick

@evan
The strong yeses are either hypocrites or trolls.

LVCTVS

@evan I'm curious what would be the expected result in the same poll in Twitter... (rhetorical question)

Evan Prodromou

@lvctvs I don't use X or Bluesky but if you do this poll lmk

Evan Prodromou

@virtuous_sloth or mistakes or VCs

Evan Prodromou

@hallenbeck I asked something close a few months ago, assuming people want the Social Web to be successful:

Evan Prodromou (@[email protected])

"There can be at most one successful protocol for a given use case." #EvanPoll #poll [ ] Strongly agree [ ] Somewhat agree [ ] Somewhat disagree [ ] Strongly disagree

CoSocial (cosocial.ca)

Evan Light (looking for work)

@evan Now let's hear from the other "yes" voters.

Dr. Matt Lee 🎃

@evan absolutely when are we creating this fictional company?

Evan Prodromou

@elight by other do you mean, other than you?

Evan Prodromou

This seems like a lot of Strong Nos.

I'm glad to hear it. I don't think Bluesky, Farcaster, or any other company should convince everyone to use the protocol they control. Their investors have bet that we will.

I like using and contributing to open standards developed in neutral standards bodies like IETF and W3C.

I will not stop saying that open standard protocols are better for the Internet than proprietary ones.

Evan Prodromou

I will, however, continue trying to learn how to say this in ways that are clear and comprehensible to listeners and don't push people away.

Evan Prodromou

I also think it's *great* when companies implement open standards. That puts them on an even playing field with individuals, families, coops, non-profits, universities, governments, and other parts of civil society. I hope the companies named above find better ways to engage with the wider Internet. I'm happy to help them however I can.

Evan Prodromou

I am sad that the ActivityPub network is still vulnerable to this kind of attack.

Protocols like HTTP and TCP/IP are ubiquitous enough that there aren't startups getting funded to create alternatives. ActivityPub is not yet that ubiquitous in its own problem space.

I am taking the news of the funding of Bluesky and others as a wake up call to help build the infrastructure and resources that ActivityPub needs to be the unquestioned default social networking protocol.

Khleedril

@wonderfox_dev @evan Those are lonely attention-seekers. Some even admit as much in the discussion, saying they only voted so others would notice them.

Bruce Elrick

@evan We need to keep the successful insertion of inscrutable DRM into official HTML standards by powerful interests top of mind when defending ActivityPub from the corporations at the gate.

Evan Prodromou

@khleedril I've had some people get quite angry at me for saying that I don't think a single company should run the Social Web.

I'm glad to know that the resistance is more about how I say it, and not that I say it at all.

Evan Prodromou

I don't like conversations about comparing protocols on technical grounds. It's not that I think ActivityPub cannot stand up to others -- it's a fantastic, expressive, flexible, secure and extensible protocol -- but I think the framing ignores the governance issues. I do appreciate the challenges, though -- it helps make ActivityPub better.