tags : Distributed Systems, Alternative Internet, peer-to-peer, Email
Examples
- A federated protocol that everyone on the internet uses.
Usage
- Gmail
- A centralized service
- But if you use a different provider you can still communicate with anyone with an email address.
ActivityPub
- Protocol defining a set of “social network” interactions
- Any entity implementing this protocol can communicate with the rest of the network.
- The entire constellation of instances that can interoperate is called the “Fediverse”.
Concepts
- “restful + linked data” stack
- ActivityPub + Linked Data Notifications
- Using ActivityStreams as its core vocabulary
Development
Usage
- Mastodon
- https://github.com/linkeddata/dokieli
- https://github.com/forgefed/forgefed
- Gitlab’s ActivityPub architecture blueprint | Hacker News
Matrix
- Protocol designed more for chat than for social networks
- An open standard for real time communication, like chat and video.
- For proprietary stuff, there are gateway services which allow Matrix to communicate with existing services but these do have limited functionality.
- How Matrix does identity is interesting
- Users have a Matrix user id
- But can also use 3rd party ids.
- A Matrix account links to ids such as email addresses, social accounts, and phone numbers.
- A globally federated cluster of trusted identity servers verify and replicate the mappings.
- They now have a P2P implementation too: Introducing P2P Matrix
- FAQ | Matrix.org
- What happens when a Matrix server disappears?
- why not matrix? – Telegraph
Usage
- Element
- Bridges
AT Protocol
- Primarily the base for Bluesky
- A network that aims to enables global long-term public conversations at scale.
- How Does BlueSky Work?
- First impressions of Bluesky’s AT Protocol
- Federation Architecture Overview - Bluesky (2023)
- A Self-Authenticating Social Protocol - Bluesky (2022)
- FAQ | AT Protocol
- 2024
- ATProto for distributed systems engineers - AT Protocol