Meta threads will open federation to the fediverse soon, and while this is mainly to mastodon it will still affect lemmy. They are acting like they won't be evil, but let's be real this is Facebook when have they ever done that.

This article which has been trending lately explains some of the issues. https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html

This comment here is a simple analogy if you can't be bothered reading the article. https://lemmy.ca/comment/5702922

@lodion@aussie.zone

  • muzzle@lemm.ee
    ·
    7 months ago

    I'm deeply conflicted about this, I want federation with big services, I think that is part of the raison d'etre of #activitypub.

    But I know the risks, I'm old enough to remember #Microsoft embracing and extinguishing the browser, #Goggle defederating from #XMPP and #Facebook predatory tactics.

    Also, I'm starting to think that federation with the big players is unstoppable. The protocol is open and there is no way to get every instance operator on board with the #fedipact . If people want to see the big players' content they'll move to an instance that federates with them. And defederating from those that connect to threads sounds like a Zealot's suicide pact.

    Ideally we'd need some kind of legal protection, that makes big services accoutable for what they do with open protocols, but the best we can hope is that the threat of such legislation being enacted will scare the bigs ones into playing fair.

    In the mean while there are no technical measures that I can think of and the social measures are unlikely to work. The only thing we can do is to enter into this with open eyes, aware of our history and hope for the best.

    • Ban DHMO 🇦🇺@aussie.zone
      ·
      7 months ago

      I wonder if there is some way that ActivityPub could be patented with license granted to all software licensed under the AGPL so all servers, clients would need to be source-available

      • muzzle@lemm.ee
        ·
        6 months ago

        You could think of some mad version of the AGPL that requires software that interoperates with yours to open its source, but I doubt it would fly in court.

        Patenting an open standard (like activity pub) sound like an oxymoron.