As someone who is not at all competent, this is an interesting read, and the comments that I see here are also very valuable.
However, there are a few points in the article that seem at least unfair, and sometime are straight gratuitous insults. The ones that stand out most to me are the following
Still we must admit that some aforementioned protocols have created huge ecosystems and hundreds of applications, while ActivityPub seems to be relegated to a very few applications aimed at mimicking GAFAM, and nothing more.
No mention to the most obvious reason why so far there are more successful applications of 42-year-old SMTP and 22-year-old XMPP and SIP than applications of 4-year-old ActivityPub.
Similaarly, no mention to the most obvious reason why AP applications feel less original wrt the corporations who overwelm today’s web way more than they ever did.(mostly south american communists , european anarchists , vegans and other freaks you won’t be friend with in real life)
It doesn’t get more personal. Also, no shit, the people who are most involved in fighting the corporate statu quo are leftists?
I would like to know what someone working with ActivityPub thinks of this (e.g. the Lemmy devs)
Same
I don‘t understand why this is upvoted. It‘s pretty clear from the start that the author is not interested in constructive criticism. I don‘t have any stake in ActivityPub, and not really an opinion whether it is a good or a bad protocol. But this article is just an angry rant, and a complete waste of time.
The tone of the article is really unpleasant, and its conclusions appear too bitter and vague to be really trusted, but at least it addresses specific points who fueled interesting discussions in this comment section.
I upvoted the post, not becuse I agree with the content of the article, but because of its potential for interesting discussions, that makes it a good addition to this community.
Sadly, I had not read the comments from @rysiek@szmer.info because szmer.info is blocked on feddit.de for whatever reason. The detailed rebuttal from @rysiek@szmer.info indeed makes this thread worthwhile, and I would love if I could upvote that comment.
Be aware that the author of this blog is a well known Italian nazi-transhumanist that is famous for making shit up about himself, his expertise and the IT industry since the early '00. Don’t trust a single word that comes out of his mouth.
I’m surprised the author did not mention NNTP, the protocol that ran the larges federated discussion system since 1986.
ActivityPub reinvented NNTP with less efficiency and very poor documentation.
NNTP is hierarchical. Also it’s certainly not more efficient with it’s 7bit MIME header system. And at least all of the docs for AP are in a single spec and not spread to 100 RFCs.
It may seem contradictory that all these ‘decentralised’ protocols are based on a very centralised structure such as the DNS, when one could use a DHT, like torrent is doing.
DNS is centralized?
Yes, it’s controlled by ICANN which licenses out the ability to become a domain registrar. Making a new TLD is very expensive and the whole process is in the hands of like a half dozen corporations.
Oof. What are the actually decentralized alternatives then?
It may seem contradictory that all these ‘decentralised’ protocols are based on a very centralised structure such as the DNS, when one could use a DHT, like torrent is doing.
Ah there we go. So it’s about how AP is not peer-to-peer and not DHT based, I guess. Well, SecureScuttleButt is right there Also, “decentralized” doesn’t exclusively mean “peer-to-peer”.
Could SMTP, XMPP, SIP have been used to build the fediverse? The answer is: yes, and they would have worked MUCH better. How do I know? Because they are widely used, and they DO work much better. As easy as that.
If they all work so well and all can replace ActivityPub, can’t they replace one another? In that case, why do we even need SIP and XMPP if SMTP was there and already popular?
The answer is: because these are old protocols that are a hell to implement, and were done in completely different times with completely different threat models and for completely different purpose.
This is not a technical assessment, meaning: if all three protocols (plus ActivityPub) can succeed in getting a message to a user (using MIME for SMTP, SDP for SIP, and XML for XMPP), they are all equivalent. If all of three can do it while also describing the type of message , they are equivalent.
Okay, so what exactly is the author saying? “They all could replace ActivityPub, but not really actually”?
Still we must admit that some aforementioned protocols [SMTP, XMPP, SIP] have created huge ecosystems and hundreds of applications, while ActivityPub seems to be relegated to a very few applications aimed at mimicking GAFAM, and nothing more.
Perhaps that’s because the oldest of them had ~40 year head-start, and the youngest (XMPP) over 15-year head-start over ActivityPub.
The only actually reasonable criticism of ActivityPub I see there is the documentation and implementation bit. AP’s documentation is, indeed, not amazing, and implementing it requires testing stuff out regarding how other AP-implementing software does things.
Which is both true, and interesting in the context of pointing to XMPP as a “better” protocol (ermahgerd the XEPs…).
I don’t know why the person is so bitter, but I hope they get better.
Not really contributing to the discussion here lol, but it appears the reason the author is bitter is a lot of disappointment and frustration that the fediverse is not living up to it’s potential.
Removed by mod
