Föderation EN Mo 30.10.2023 19:39:33
#ActivityPub has a lot of the same characteristics as email. But in email, the duties of each part of the process are split up, and you can mix-and-match software. Fediverse software is more tightly coupled than that.
SMTP is like the ActivityPub server-to-server protocol. Like in email with sendmail/exim/postfix/etc, you could have a program that does just this.
IMAP is like the server-to-client protocol. Like in email, with courier/dovecot/etc, you could have a program that does just this.
Föderation EN Mo 30.10.2023 19:42:37
One thing the fediverse DOES have is multiple client programs. Like with Thunderbird/Roundcube/K-9 Mail, you can use a few different fediverse client apps, or even a couple that run on the web, like what's that one, Elk?
But a bunch of them, the "user-agents" are tied to the backend. Like, you can't use Mastodon's client with a Firefish server. I think it'd be better for the ecosystem if the clients were split from the servers, and the servers were split into S2S and S2C.
Föderation EN Mo 30.10.2023 19:47:48
@MegaMichelle what's the most popular server software that implements S2C? I can't find any up-to-date data, but I don't think any of the ones I've heard of implement it.
Föderation EN Mo 30.10.2023 19:51:54
Well, I see a lot of people using Mastodon from apps on their phones. So Mastodon implements the S2C API. And some other servers are usable via the same apps, so they must present a similar API.
Föderation EN Mo 30.10.2023 19:56:01
@MegaMichelle My understanding is that Mastodon has its own API for clients, separate from the S2C API spelled out by ActivityPub.
Looking at https://docs.joinmastodon.org/client/authorized/#timelines I would expect a S2C client to be accessing the inbox and outbox OrderedCollection objects, not /api/v1/statuses and /api/v1/timelines
Föderation EN Mo 30.10.2023 19:59:55
Ohhh oops, yeah for sure!
I'll hafta look at that a little more. I wouldn't be surprised if the ActivityPub S2C API didn't offer enough semantics to make the clients we need, so it might need to be beefed up. We could look at what's in the Mastodon API for ideas of where the gaps are in the ActivityPub S2C API.
Föderation EN Mo 30.10.2023 20:08:13
@MegaMichelle @george It's exactly this. The C2S profile is not actually implementable.
Föderation EN Di 31.10.2023 21:55:50
@jenniferplusplus @MegaMichelle @george C2S can be implemented. I know of several implementations of the server side of C2S, but it's not very useful for UI purposes. A few of the missing features compared to the Mastodon API are search, list and bookmark management, and timelines (no, inbox/outbox are not the same as a Mastodon timeline).
