Why the #OMN works with #ActivityPub – And why we need a bridge to #p2p

[info@hamishcampbell.com]

Let’s look at this. #ActivityPub is not a product. It’s not even really a “protocol” in the narrow, rigid sense that vertical tech likes to imagine. ActivityPub is a shared vocabulary, a public language for moving meaning and connection across the #openweb. It gives you nouns and verbs, and the community defines the grammar through lived use.

This is why the #OMN works with ActivityPub, a metadata and meaning layer, not a platform, flows, not silos. ActivityPub is the widely deployed #4opens protocol that treats publishing as a flow, a conversation.

Unlike the more vertical stacks (#ATProto is a good example), ActivityPub doesn’t force a worldview. It doesn’t tell you, “this is how your network must be structured.” It doesn’t enforce hierarchy or lock you into one interpretation of identity, authority, or workflow. It’s a #KISS path – here’s a shared language, verbs for publishing and receiving, express objects, updates, relationships. The rest is up to the commons

This flexibility is exactly why the #OMN can become a part of this flow. ActivityPub, with #FAP process, is already evolving this way – not through top-down committees, but by developers and users defining new grammar for shared needs. Quote posts, permissions, object types, and many other extensions are emerging organically. This is horizontal protocol evolution, which aligns well with the #OMN path.

To mediate the #geekproblem trying to break this path. We need to say clearly why we don’t want an “ActivityPub 2.0”. A clean break is a vertical move, it reproduces the #techcurn cycle: throw away the compost, start another shiny stack, burn everything down every five years because fashion demands it. It’s the #fashernista mindset applied to protocols.

For the #OMN, we need continuity, evolving the commons, not abandoning it. ActivityPub works because it’s an accretion protocol, not a replacement protocol. We extend it, we add grammar, we build bridges, we compost the broken bits. This is the #nothingnew ethos: repair, adapt, extend, don’t rewrite reality every cycle.

This is fine up to a point, but still too much – Central points of failure – Which is fine for much of the #fediverse. But the #OMN isn’t only for well-resourced servers, it’s for change and challenge. Activists on the ground, communities without reliable hosting, people under surveillance, low-resource groups, offline-first publishing, pop-up networks, autonomous movements that cannot rely on central infrastructure.

For this layer, we need true #p2p protocols. This is where #DAT, #Hypercore, and similar tools matter – not as replacements, but as bridges. These are needed for resilient metadata flows, where stories, tags, and meaning travel across networks even when the networks are broken.

We need to understand why both matter, It’s because they do different things. ActivityPub gives us: wide distribution, discoverability, moderation structures, federation, slow-moving cultural infrastructure. We add to this what #p2p gives us: autonomy, resilience, offline survival, local-first publishing, anti-censorship pathways,

The #OMN’s job is to bridge these layers, same metadata vocabulary, same hashtag meaning system, same open processes. Two different transport layers depending on the need. Think of it like the compost metaphor: ActivityPub is the shared soil bed. #p2p is the mycelium running underneath, keeping it alive when storms hit.

This matters, we don’t want just another Fediverse, we don’t want just another p2p experiment. We need a living ecosystem that can: publish everywhere, survive disconnection, resist capture, remain open, remain public, remain messy, remain ours. ActivityPub gives us the public commons, p2p gives us the underground root network. The #OMN ties them together through shared metadata, hashtags, practices, and governance.

Compost, not silos, ecosystems, not empires. Federation on the surface, peer-to-peer underneath. This is the #OMN path.

[silverpill@mitra.social]

@info We may not need bridges because ActivityPub can be extended to work in peer to peer mode.

This possibility was unlocked by nomadic identity: https://codeberg.org/ap-next/ap-next/src/branch/main/nomadpub.md