Re: Let's turn aspiration into fact?

We currently have 3 important subgroups in this CG:

* Testing task force
* ActivityPub + Webfinger report team
* ActivityPub + HTTP Signature report team

So, at TPAC last year, we decided to open a Data Portability Task Force. 
We have a draft report on data portability here:

https://w3c.github.io/activitypub/data-portability-report.html

We need a few people to take on the role of organizing this task force. 
If you're interested, please talk to the chairs. Having 1-2 people take 
this on would be a huge help.

I'd love to see this move forward. In particular, I'd like to see more 
server software support bring-your-own-domain (BYOD) and I'd like to see 
an effective standard for transferring content and reactions (likes, 
replies, shares) between servers.

Evan

> On Feb 7, 2024, at 5:08 PM, Johannes Ernst <johannes.ernst@gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>
> Suggest that before we discuss HOW something could be done (whether 
> FEPs, Zot, whatever …) …
>
> … we need to get some forward momentum on WHAT should or needs to be done.
>
> My straw proposal, taken from the Verge article, is fundamentally 
> about the WHAT: take your followers, take your content, take “your 
> everything” as he put it.
>
> Traditionally, this group has said, more or less, “things are fine, no 
> need to do anything”, and I’d like us to get out of that mode, 
> specifically towards what “leading users” like David @ the Verge would 
> like us to have done already. “Doable aspiration” as he put it in a 
> comment.
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> Johannes.
>
> Johannes Ernst
>
> Fediforum <https://fediforum.org/>
> Dazzle Labs <https://dazzlelabs.net/>
>
>
>
>> On Feb 7, 2024, at 13:23, Scott <sstolz@wistex.com> wrote:
>>
>> > If you wanted to leave one platform for another, you could bring all your content, all your 
>> followers, all your everything with you.
>>
>> We already have this capability with Hubzilla via the Zot protocol, 
>> and Streams via the Nomad protocol. If ActivityPub could adopt these 
>> features, it would bring this feature set to more people.
>>
>> The way Zot and Nomad protocols handle it would be a good model to 
>> start from. We've been using it for over a decade now, before 
>> ActivityPub even existed. It may not be popular because it was never 
>> promoted properly nor well-documented, but it is tried and tested. 
>> (And now that we formed the Hubzilla Association and I was elected 
>> its President, we are going to make sure our unique feature set is 
>> documented and promoted properly.)
>>
>> If you were to implement a similar feature set, some things that 
>> would be necessary include:
>>
>> 1. Portable or Nomadic Identities would need to be based on 
>> cryptographic keys, not a URL or channel address 
>> (someone@example.com). That way the identity can be recognized as the 
>> same person or channel even though it moved servers.
>>
>> 2. Ideally, there is a common export and import format that can be 
>> used for multiple platforms. You could export your identity and data 
>> from one platform and move it to another by downloading a file from 
>> your existing server and then uploading it to the new server.
>>
>> 3. If you want to get fancy, you could do a sync between accounts so 
>> there is no download required. You authenticate on both platforms, 
>> and issue a "sync" command to either migrate or make a clone of your 
>> account.
>>
>> 4. If you really want to get fancy, you would implement "nomadic 
>> identity" in addition to "portable identity." They are similar, but 
>> the key difference is that with nomadic identity, your identity can 
>> exist on more than one server at a time, whereas a portable identity 
>> is for migrating from one server to another.
>>
>> Both the Zot protocol and the Nomad protocol have already implemented 
>> all four of the above.
>>
>> Ideally this functionality is part of ActivityPub and the different 
>> platforms get to decide if they make that functionality available to 
>> their users.
>>
>> I know that with Hubzilla, we are redesigning our website, 
>> documentation, and user interface to promote nomadic identity and 
>> federated single sign on. And we plan on using this as a reason to 
>> choose Hubzilla over ActivityPub-based platforms.
>>
>> Your identity is already portable and nomadic on our platform. 
>> Hopefully we can get the rest of the fediverse onboard with the 
>> concepts of nomadic identity and federated single sign on.
>>
>> Any way that I can help, I am here.
>>
>> Scott M. Stolz
>> President, Hubzilla Association
>> Director, Federated Works
>> Founder & Manager, WisTex TechSero Ltd. Co.
>>
>> On 2/7/2024 1:15 PM, Lisa Dusseault wrote:
>>> I can get behind that aspiration.  I think there are important use 
>>> cases to verifiably bring one's social history along in a move, and 
>>> that users moving among servers is rather key to ActivityPub's 
>>> moderation architecture working well.  Server administrators won't 
>>> feel empowered to defederate servers with policies they can't 
>>> accept, if  many well-connected well-behaved users are stuck on that 
>>> server.
>>>
>>> To make proposals more concrete, we could write some proposed 
>>> requirements first,  identify the key use cases -- if there is 
>>> energy to do that, otherwise wait and focus first on the existing 
>>> stuff, right?
>>>
>>> Lisa
>>>
>>> On Wed, Feb 7, 2024 at 9:56 AM Johannes Ernst 
>>> <johannes.ernst@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>     According to David Pierce at The Verge in a piece
>>>     <https://www.theverge.com/24063290/fediverse-explained-activitypub-social-media-open-protocol> published
>>>     today, the Fediverse is:
>>>
>>>>     … an interconnected social platform ecosystem based on an open
>>>>     protocol called ActivityPub, which allows you to port your
>>>>     content, data, and follower graph between networks.
>>>
>>>     He continues:
>>>
>>>>     If you wanted to leave one platform for another, you could
>>>>     bring all your content, all your followers, all your everything
>>>>     with you.
>>>
>>>     This is aspirational compared to the state of implementation
>>>     today, but a very reasonable aspiration IMHO. I would be
>>>     prepared to argue that this aspiration — and a few other bit and
>>>     pieces he isn’t mentioning — are essential to become real in
>>>     order to deliver on the promise that people already think we are
>>>     making. (Anecdotally I have found that many people believe this,
>>>     not just David)
>>>
>>>     What are our aspirations in SWICG here, specifically with
>>>     respect to future standards work?
>>>
>>>     It’s very important that we document what works today, I
>>>     appreciate the people who are stepping up right now, and don’t
>>>     want to distract from that.
>>>
>>>     But once we have captured the present, where are we going? As a
>>>     straw proposal, I propose that we adopt the two above sentences
>>>     from today’s Verge piece as a vision, e.g. as “We develop the
>>>     standards (and whatever else is necessary) that make easily
>>>     possible … (see above)”.
>>>
>>>     1. Does this vision sound reasonable to you?
>>>     2. How can this very straw-y proposal be improved?
>>>
>>>     P.S. Yes, I understand that we won’t (want to) squeeze Lemmy
>>>     into Mastodon. So add the qualifier: within reason or such.
>>>
>>>     Cheers,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>     Johannes.
>>>
>>>     Johannes Ernst
>>>
>>>     Fediforum <https://fediforum.org/>
>>>     Dazzle Labs <https://dazzlelabs.net/>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>