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ActivityPub over ATProto (2023)
- rapnie 2mo ago(2023) but worth being reposted, never got a good HN discussion. Between 8 and 12 July there's DWebCamp [0] and many experts and devs on both protocols are present, so opportunity for some good cross-pollination here. [0] https://dwebcamp.org https://dwebcamp.org
- toomuchtodo 2mo agoWill content from dwebcamp be online for those unable to make it?
- rapnie 2mo agoI think so, yes. The videos of the last camp are online as well at https://dwebcamp.org/videos https://dwebcamp.org/videos
- inigyou 2mo agoDamn, I could've been there, if I'd known about it
- nekusar 2mo agoI can easily install an ActivityPub server, with Glitch. Show me the ATProto server that can integrate with BlueSky.
- master-lincoln 2mo agohere https://blog.bront.rodeo/setting-up-your-own-pds/ https://blog.bront.rodeo/setting-up-your-own-pds/
- nekusar 2mo ago[dead]
- Hoodedcrow 2mo agoThe answer here would be "there's no such thing as a generic "server" like in ActivityPub because it's split into different components, of which a PDS is only one". Honestly my main question here is "If you disagree with various ActivityPub instances' defederations, you can get around this by starting your own instance that federates with everything; is there an equivalent for bypassing Bluesky's moderation decisions?"
- master-lincoln 2mo agoUse a different appview, not bluesky. Or have your own appView. That is the design of ATProto as far as I understood.
- madeofpalk 2mo ago> I can easily install an ActivityPub server, with Glitch. Can you? The same Glitch that shut down last year? https://blog.glitch.com/post/goodbye-glitch https://blog.glitch.com/post/goodbye-glitch Regardless, ActivityPub and ATProto have different designs and goals. Your question is akin to comparing a helicopter and an airplane. There's no such thing as a "ATProto server". How complicated it is, and the trade-offs it made are valid criticisms of it. It all depends on what exactly your goal is as a participant of a distributed social network.
- inigyou 2mo agoWhat does ATProto run on, if not servers? Is it fully decentralised mesh P2P that runs on phones?
- madeofpalk 2mo agoWhat makes up the ATProto is more than one type of server. Compared to ActivityPub where you just run a single Mastodon instance and you're set. If the thing you want to own is your identity and data, you can fairly easy run a PDS yourself. If the thing you care about is different moderation decisions, you can run your own labeller (moderation system) or subscribe to another someone else has made.
- anentropic 2mo agoThere's not one server instance type, there are different components to it To 'own your data' you just need a PDS, which should be cheaper to run than an ActivityPub server To build an app you need some of the more expensive parts
- riffraff 2mo agoNever used it, but I've seen some praise for Snac as an easy to deploy activitypub server https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2 https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2
- well_ackshually 2mo ago[flagged]
- kyle-rb 2mo agoWell actually, that's not what an AppView is for. If you just want to post messages on your website that get syndicated to BlueSky (as blog post links or full threads or whatever) you could have your website server make API calls to your PDS (whether that's self-hosted or not). If you're talking about building your own custom BlueSky app, "AppView" is not synonymous with "viewer app"; basically it's an "AppView" because it provides a "view" of the network necessary to power an end user "app". I.e. it holds a copy of every single post, repost, and like, so you don't have to. Your custom app would simply make requests to the logged-in user's PDS, which routes most of those requests to that user's preferred AppView.
- spankalee 2mo agoThere is no "AT Proto server" - https://overreacted.io/there-are-no-instances-in-atproto/ https://overreacted.io/there-are-no-instances-in-atproto/
- fsflover 2mo agoWhich is a misleading message, according to the recent HN discussion, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48599515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48599515.
- johnecheck 2mo agoIs there a relevant recent HN discussion or is this comment just in bad faith?
- fsflover 2mo agoSorry, I fixed the link.
- spankalee 2mo agoI don't think it's misleading at all, the comment you're looking to is. People really do ask where "The AT Proto server is" as evidenced by this thread, and the really is no "AT Proto server" or "instance". AT Proto and BlueSky are a collection of services with no 1-1 relationship to a Mastodon or RSS server. There's absolutely nothing misleading about that.
- fsflover 2mo agoThe misleading thing is that people asking do not care about the exact construction of ATProto. They ask whether they can self-host and control everything and still interact with the main network.
- jimmydoe 2mo agoIs run your own pds good enough? Or you want your own view?
- 4lx87 2mo agoRSS/webmention > ActivityPub > ATProto
- jayemar 2mo agoI don't disagree with the sentiment as I love RSS, but doesn't it have a different use case than ActivityPub or ATProto?
- madeofpalk 2mo agoI mean, conceptually ActivityPub is quite similar to RSS. You might be able to call it Less Simple Syndication.
- rapnie 2mo agoThat doesn't do ActivityPub (or ATProto) justice. The inverse would be "more complicated RSS". But it is way more than that. You get semantically meaningful typed messages on AP. Most people think of AP as what you get on the fediverse, where basically the only type in use is the ActivityStreams Note object. But it can be anything that is transferred in a standards-conform interoperable way.
- spankalee 2mo agoAnd how does RSS let you move your data to a new host while preserving your identity like AT Proto does?
- mort96 2mo agoChange the DNS record?
- spankalee 2mo agoYes, this works if your RSS server has its own DNS record that you control, and is essentially what the Domain Handle -> DID indirection gives you in AT Proto. What Bluesky and AT Proto in general do is make it easy for people to either get a domain (a *.bsky.social subdomain) or use their own as their handle. And AT Proto also lets you change your domain while preserving your identity, since the actual identity is a DID. That makes it very easy to move your data and your handle around and not lose followers. If you change your RSS server's domain name, your subscribers don't come with you.
- gnashxyz 2mo agoHuge fan of this concept.
- kmeisthax 2mo agoOk, since everyone's here, I'll ask: what is the credible exit from Bluesky - as in, not ATProto as a whole, but specifically the Bluesky PDS/AppView/etc - right now, in 2026? I have a Bluesky identity that I registered primarily to follow someone that I happened to meet in person while stumping for the Rio Grande Plan[0]. I only have like five posts on it, but I would like to migrate that over to the same domain I already self-host Mastodon on. Bluesky has an option to have your handle on a custom domain, but that involves publishing a DNS record containing a did:plc whose keys are custodially owned by Bluesky. This is not so much an exit as it is an overcomplicated verification scheme. My assumption is that if Bluesky wanted a better credible exit than ActivityPub, then we would need some way to rotate keys so that I could have my own PDS publish new posts on my existing identity and have other AppViews recognize that as the same kmeisthax that was previously using Bluesky as a PDS. The Mastodon exit is woefully inadequate, but at least if the admin cooperates, you can redirect your account and export your data. Everyone else on any other ActivityPub instance will see the same thing. As it currently stands, ATProto has a great way to migrate between AppViews[1], but no way to migrate off an uncompliant PDS. [0] The Rio Grande Plan is a citizen-led movement calling for burying the heavy rail corridor going through Salt Lake City. [1] ActivityPub is actually really lousy at cross-app interaction. If you're on a Mastodon instance, there is no way to participate in a Lemmy forum. Mastodon does not understand how to send the correct ActivityPub messages that Lemmy expects; and there's no protocol for Lemmy to tell Mastodon to publish certain ActivityPub messages on its behalf.
- jimmydoe 2mo agoGoogle did:web
- kmeisthax 2mo agoThere is no mechanism to migrate a did:plc identity to a did:web one (or vice versa). The DID string is morally an SQL primary key.
- jsmith45 2mo agoThe PLC keys are normally intended to be held by your current PDS. Not a hard protocol requirement, but without it, certain things like migrating to a custom domain handle cannot be done cleanly though the app, and would need to be done manually. It might be a requirement of the bluesky hosted PDSes though, as those have some extra requirements beyond the reference self-hosted PDS. The fact that BlueSky runs the PLC central server is supposed to be fixed by them creating a swiss association to run and control it instead, but while they announced this, it is unclear if it went anywhere. If you migrate to a self hosted PDS using the all-in-one migration `goat account migrate` command, it will temporarily change your handle to a subdomain of your new PDS, and leave the new PDS managing the PLC. You can instead perform each step manually via goat or raw API calls, either of which would let you transition to direct PLC key management, and/or a new domain based handle as a single atomic plc update, as part of the overall migration process. See https://atproto.com/guides/account-migration https://atproto.com/guides/account-migration for a discussion of the process at the protocol level. See https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3l5ii332pf32u https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3l5ii332pf32u for a breakdown of both the automated, and step by step process via `goat`. It does not go into the details of switching to self managed, but it basically requires crafting your new PLC document, sending that one to the old PDS to sign, and then submitting the result. There are manual PLC signing, and submission commands available as `goat plc` subcommands, for use once you have manual control.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- ChrisArchitect 2mo agoRelated: The Fediverse Is Not the Way Forward https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48785077 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48785077 There are no instances in ATProto https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48599515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48599515
- ChrisArchitect 2mo agoFeel like alot has happened since (2023). Mastodon/fediverse didn't take off in the way many thought it might at the time, with various silo/controversies, limitations on network effect, and general public uptake dwindling. Acknowledging that a good chunk of the public wants a centralized service is a thing (despite all the problems with that down the road etc etc). Some like it and have found their community on various servers, good. Meanwhile AT Proto has put a lot of work into getting devs on board with building things on the protocol etc and a snazzy new website recently https://atproto.com/ https://atproto.com/. Not arguing that Bluesky is wildly successful, with stagnating growth etc but as with fediverse, many have found community there as well. But again, since 2023, there has been change and developments as far as people interested in external PDS etc putting the work in (Eurosky, Blacksky etc). Not even mentioning Meta's Threads, with again, some finding community there (tho how they even arrived there is one thing (instagram forced) and Fediverse integration or wider instance support is questionable). All of these things require engineering and social work to grow and it's hit and miss to gather momentum and stickiness.