Now every new AP project is following suit, developing a client/sever combination specifically to handle a single Object type, any enabling federation support on a project by project basis. We need a full AP server that's not tied to a specific client. It should support AP C2S API so a user can login to any client using oauth and handle different types. A user could use one client to create events, one to manage photos, and another to write notes or articles, and they'd all be tied to the same account.
Hopefully, people will get past thinking of Mastodon, Pleroma, PixelFed, etc and just think of the ActivityPub network. I don't think the fediverse will continue to grow without this change in philosophy.
@0x1C3B00DA That's only one of two options. The other one is that you can use a nomadic identity with different servers, so that those can still be focused on a specific thing, but you can use the same account to post to say a micro-blogging network as well as photo community, or some Lanyrd-style event calendar site. All of them need moderation, and I also wouldn't want to lock people's entire social life into one server that they probably signed up for on a whim.
@0x1C3B00DA Also, "has held back" is a bit of a strange argument, considering that ActivityPub is not even half a year old and we have all these implementations working and being used already. Even if it's not a generic AP server, it certainly has done more for AP adoption than any other software, being the first implementation at all really.
AP seems to have been designed with the idea that the server will accept any correct Object into your Inbox and the client will decide what and how to display it. Then a new client can come along for creating maps, for example, and it'll work with AP servers via Place Objects. But that can't happen right now. Mastodon has specific requirements for federation that are non-standard and every project has to test federation with each other project.
@0x1C3B00DA I see your point, but as far as I know Pleroma is doing C2S as well as S2S and they're planning to make it more generic in the future. Every implementation has to be tested with others still, because the AS formats themselves aren't standardized (yet?).
@notclacke @0x1C3B00DA @kaniini @lain Ah, then I remembered wrong. :/
AP C2S is in the cards and partially implemented already. after 1.0 type thing.
@0x1C3B00DA ActivityStreams standardizes the general format, but not the actual post types etc. There's https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-vocabulary/#object-types but it doesn't contain a good match for microblog posts. They're neither articles nor notes. Problem with these specs is that a lot of the content comes from theory, not implementing software. Hence, they cannot cover real-world usage very well.
Are you sure about the formats? I thought the Objects are a part of the ActivityStreams spec, which was written before ActivityPub.