@trwnh@julian@wjmaggos I am taking Computer Networks right now, and I asked the very same question. If we have application-layer protocols, what do we call the things like SOAP or ActivityPub that work on top of those protocols. The answer I got was that those are also layer 7. Once you get to layer 7, it's just 7 all the way up. Inverted turtle structure!
@trwnh@julian@wjmaggos "The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems."
@evan@julian@wjmaggos what would you consider to be the "application domain" of HTTP, and what needs to be built above it? ironically, i think if you look at the OSI model, then HTTP is already at the uppermost "layer 7", the application layer -- and attempts to build networks on top of HTTP are in effect virtualizing lower layers! so instead of a virtual 3-7 on top of HTTP's 7, why not use HTTP's 7 directly? how many nested virtualized app layers do we need?