Re: Reconciling theory and in practice -- do the specs need updating?

> On Mar 3, 2023, at 09:27, hellekin <hellekin@cepheide.org> wrote:

> The FEP process is supposed to be a way to modify the core specifications.

I can’t see anything in https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fep-a4ed-the-fediverse-enhancement-proposal-process/1171 that says that. It only says: A FEP “… is a document that provides information … ”.

However, if this process could be strengthened to allow actual core spec modifications — and “allow” here means that “everybody” buys into this process, for some value of “everybody” — then this would go a long way towards what I think is needed.

> ...
> Note that the NGI Zero consortium would happily fund an ActivityPub test suite if that would help the community.

This would be amazing! Hard work for somebody to actually create this for server-to-server interactions across apps (some of the reasons are listed in https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/the-activitypub-test-suite/290) but very worthwhile.

An important question would be, however, what would be the scope of such a test suite? If, say, it focused exclusively on the ActivityPub spec, passing the test suite would mean fairly little in terms of the user’s experience with attempting to interoperate with their friend using a different app.

I would argue that such a test suite should prioritize the “entire stack” (whatever that means for a given pair of app instances) with “pass” meaning “reasonable user expectations met”. (Of course they are subjective, but one could start simply, and add to the test suite over time.)

Best,



Johannes.

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