(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.
The 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?"
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.
What 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.
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.
(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
Will content from dwebcamp be online for those unable to make it?
I think so, yes. The videos of the last camp are online as well at https://dwebcamp.org/videos
Damn, I could've been there, if I'd known about it
RSS/webmention > ActivityPub > ATProto
I don't disagree with the sentiment as I love RSS, but doesn't it have a different use case than ActivityPub or ATProto?
I mean, conceptually ActivityPub is quite similar to RSS. You might be able to call it Less Simple Syndication.
And how does RSS let you move your data to a new host while preserving your identity like AT Proto does?
Huge fan of this concept.
I can easily install an ActivityPub server, with Glitch.
Show me the ATProto server that can integrate with BlueSky.
here https://blog.bront.rodeo/setting-up-your-own-pds/
The 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?"
> 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
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.
What does ATProto run on, if not servers? Is it fully decentralised mesh P2P that runs on phones?
What 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.
There'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
Never used it, but I've seen some praise for Snac as an easy to deploy activitypub server
https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2
A PDS? Here: https://blog.bront.rodeo/setting-up-your-own-pds/
Want your own AppView so you can have nekusar.net and post your messages and people on BSky see it ? https://github.com/blacksky-algorithms/atproto
ActivityPub zealots would do well to calm down for one second, this can't be good for your heart man.
Well 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.
There is no "AT Proto server" - https://overreacted.io/there-are-no-instances-in-atproto/
Which is a misleading message, according to the recent HN discussion, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48599515.
Is there a relevant recent HN discussion or is this comment just in bad faith?
Sorry, I fixed the link.