I would like to give an update on "federation" on Bluesky
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@alter_kaker @mcc hmm, apparently not that much knowledge is required, and the cost dropped significantly, I still don't trust any of it though
@esoteric_programmer @alter_kaker @mcc This is curious to me, because it looks like he's running a relay as an actual relay, just passing along data, which would explain why it's relatively low-cost. But the Relay described by the Bluesky white paper was more than just a relay— it was a replacement (or rebrand) for the earlier Big Data Server that was supposed to not only pass data, but also store and index it all for the network. And I can't tell if those other, more expensive functions got offloaded to other services, or if there are two types of relays in the infrastructure, or something else.
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If you sign up with https://blacksky.community you get:
- Blacksky's "appview"/web frontend
- Optionally, Blacksky's PDS
- Blacksky's moderation layer (and you can optionally enable Bluesky's too)Almost-complete independence! What I'm not clear on is to whether, or to what degree Blacksky relies on Bluesky's "relay":
@mcc (if this is too off topic just ignore!)
I noticed that Blacksky asks for a birth date when you make a new account.
Bluesky didn't use to ask. No idea what they do now, but I would not have made an account with them if they required a birth date.
I'm sure people make up dates but I was still surprised. I'm guessing this is related to age verification laws? I don't know much about them.
Have any Fediverse servers started to ask for a birth date when a new account is created?
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@mcc Which PDS implementation are you self hosting with?
@fabrice the official one. It seems fine.
Is there a reason to pick another?
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@mcc I don't know :) Maybe the Rust one from blacksky is less resource intensive?
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@mcc (if this is too off topic just ignore!)
I noticed that Blacksky asks for a birth date when you make a new account.
Bluesky didn't use to ask. No idea what they do now, but I would not have made an account with them if they required a birth date.
I'm sure people make up dates but I was still surprised. I'm guessing this is related to age verification laws? I don't know much about them.
Have any Fediverse servers started to ask for a birth date when a new account is created?
@ahimsa_pdx I don't know. I didn't make an account, apparently.
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@mcc There's also https://plc.directory/, the
did:plc:database, also run by Bluesky.("
plc" stands for "placeholder", because they aspire to figure out something blockchain decentralized later.)I think Bluesky can inconvenience people at best, or hijack their accounts at worst, especially if they were using a Bluesky PDS and Bluesky has all the keys. But I don't know/remember the exact implications.
@mnordhoff yes, the plc is another really frustrating thing
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@mcc I don't know :) Maybe the Rust one from blacksky is less resource intensive?
@fabrice yeah, I dunno. I haven't noticed a load problem from the typescript implementation. I don't have a very data oriented operation over here tho
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And that's why I say, TLDR:
- I am legitimately excited about the work being done by Blacksky Algorithms! I am using their frontend and happy with it.
- Northsky is an interesting development to watch
- If you're on a Bluesky PDS, I recommend migrating off with one of these tools https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ii5jchdzlmcojjw4dqczcgkh/post/3lyt6t6qfa22u
- Everything Sucks. A LOT of things would have to change at a social level for *any* entity other than Bluesky to have power or independence in the ATP ecosystem. I still don't trust Bluesky.
As an update since posting the above thread I have received replies from two people, one saying I am underestimating the level of stack coverage Blacksky has, another saying I am overestimating it. Also a "AppView" and "Client" are different. Sorry.
The stack is just so tall! There are *so many* layers in this protocol's model. And it seems like every single one of them is an opportunity to introduce censorship
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I would like to give an update on "federation" on Bluesky.
My expectation was it was unlikely we'd ever see this happen because "federation" on ATProto means basically reproducing the entirety of the Bluesky software stack. In old Big Data terms, on ActivityPub your instance is a "horizontal shard" of the network; ATProto forces full DB replicas only.
Still, we're seeing movement on this front, which I'd split into two categories:
1. Your fault (you reading this)
2. Aaron Rodericks's fault@mcc Look, Bluesky has some nice advantages over the fediverse, mainly that it's not confusing at all because it gets to the point of just being old Twitter.
Federation is not their strong point and will never be, whether we like it or not, if you want federation and multiple communities, Activitypub is by far the best option.
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@esoteric_programmer so this is all within my ability. But what about the rest of the stack? To my understanding, the PDS and view? As @mcc says things have to change in a social level but the first step is more nodes...
@mcc @alter_kaker @esoteric_programmer I think the key point is: "Every Bluesky replica is, probably without realizing it, making a bet that Bluesky has already plateaued." This is a worthwhile experiment, as long as you can pull the plug at a moment's notice and lose nothing. -
@esoteric_programmer @alter_kaker @mcc This is curious to me, because it looks like he's running a relay as an actual relay, just passing along data, which would explain why it's relatively low-cost. But the Relay described by the Bluesky white paper was more than just a relay— it was a replacement (or rebrand) for the earlier Big Data Server that was supposed to not only pass data, but also store and index it all for the network. And I can't tell if those other, more expensive functions got offloaded to other services, or if there are two types of relays in the infrastructure, or something else.
@lrhodes @mcc @alter_kaker @esoteric_programmer My understanding is that relays have a "replay since timestamp X" functionality, so that consumers that go down for a while can get back up and running. Originally relays by definition had to support any X back to the beginning of time, leading to absurd storage costs. Today they are allowed to have a much shorter window, meaning in effect the storage cost is insignificant and it's the network cost that dominates. Unless I'm mistaken, the canonical store of a user's posting history is and always was the PDS. -
@alter_kaker I'm not the person to ask. I would join the Bluesky API Touchers discord (yes, it's really named that) and ask there.
Blacksky has all their software on GitHub (they are using a mix of original Bluesky software and their own stuff) but not instructions on how to deploy it as a whole stack.
@mcc @alter_kaker "I would join the Bluesky API Touchers discord"
But... why are they not using... no OK never mind.
I'm so glad for this thread! I've had a bazillion questions about AT but nowhere to ask them. I really think there should be an "other protocols" channel on activitypub.space though. This is not "Technical discussion about ActivityPub-related topics" and sooner or later someone's gonna get angry at us.
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And that's why I say, TLDR:
- I am legitimately excited about the work being done by Blacksky Algorithms! I am using their frontend and happy with it.
- Northsky is an interesting development to watch
- If you're on a Bluesky PDS, I recommend migrating off with one of these tools https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ii5jchdzlmcojjw4dqczcgkh/post/3lyt6t6qfa22u
- Everything Sucks. A LOT of things would have to change at a social level for *any* entity other than Bluesky to have power or independence in the ATP ecosystem. I still don't trust Bluesky.
@mcc what exactly is the benefit of migrating to a non bluesky PDS? I understand being on an entirely different vertical stack like Blacksky or Northsky but what does being on a PDS give you? Aren't you still (almost) entirely at bluesky's mercy?
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@mcc @alter_kaker "I would join the Bluesky API Touchers discord"
But... why are they not using... no OK never mind.
I'm so glad for this thread! I've had a bazillion questions about AT but nowhere to ask them. I really think there should be an "other protocols" channel on activitypub.space though. This is not "Technical discussion about ActivityPub-related topics" and sooner or later someone's gonna get angry at us.
mat@friendica.exon.name I am not opposed to a category discussing alternatives protocols.
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@mcc Blocks are "enforced" at the client level. I know, I know, that probably merits another "oh dear" but that's how Bluesky is doing it. So blacksky.community as a client doesn't do age verification for DMs in the UK, or block access to Mississippi.
Takedowns by contrast are at the AppView and someties PDS level.
@jdp23 Rudy says they're appview and also client. https://bsky.app/profile/rude1.blacksky.team/post/3lyvbqh3m3s2e
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As an update since posting the above thread I have received replies from two people, one saying I am underestimating the level of stack coverage Blacksky has, another saying I am overestimating it. Also a "AppView" and "Client" are different. Sorry.
The stack is just so tall! There are *so many* layers in this protocol's model. And it seems like every single one of them is an opportunity to introduce censorship
Update: Rudy who operates blacksky.community responded to this thread on bluesky. Above I said I wasn't clear on how independent Blacksky was of the Bluesky infra. His answer is "completely". They run their own relay (which scrapes PDSes itself), the relay feeds into their own appview, the appview feeds into their own client. https://bsky.app/profile/rude1.blacksky.team/post/3lyv5rwpc722c
And since they bridge end-to-end, in my Hypothetical Example above, they *could* choose to make different moderation decisions from Bluesky PBC.
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@jdp23 Rudy says they're appview and also client. https://bsky.app/profile/rude1.blacksky.team/post/3lyvbqh3m3s2e
@mcc so I saw! I responded over there. I was in a video disucssion on Friday and I could have sworn he said that the appview wasn't released yet, but it looks like I was just confused. If so, sorry for the misinformation!
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@mcc so I saw! I responded over there. I was in a video disucssion on Friday and I could have sworn he said that the appview wasn't released yet, but it looks like I was just confused. If so, sorry for the misinformation!
@jdp23 Blacksky is not only hosting a Bluesky alternative, they are *coding* a Bluesky alternative (in Rust, where Bluesky prefers a combination of TypeScript and Go). I assume(?) the combination of Rudy's statements should be interpreted to mean that the self-authored AppView is not ready yet, so he is hosting a PDS he wrote, hosting a relay he wrote, hosting Bluesky's appview and client on top of that, and he intends to replace Bluesky's appview soon. I assume.
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@jdp23 Blacksky is not only hosting a Bluesky alternative, they are *coding* a Bluesky alternative (in Rust, where Bluesky prefers a combination of TypeScript and Go). I assume(?) the combination of Rudy's statements should be interpreted to mean that the self-authored AppView is not ready yet, so he is hosting a PDS he wrote, hosting a relay he wrote, hosting Bluesky's appview and client on top of that, and he intends to replace Bluesky's appview soon. I assume.
@mcc it's certainly possible! I didn't think they were running a separate appview yet but I could easily be wrong.
(blacksky.community is currently a fork of the Blluesky app-aka-client, it hasn't diverged much yet. not sure if and when they're planning on writing their own implementation of that)
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I've gone live!
Fireside Fedi - Episode 53 - Jesse Karmani - Frequency
#owncast #streaming #interview #fediverse #fedi #people #show #firesidefedi #FsF
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@jpaskaruk 😆
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Submissions for Fediverse FOSDEM 2026 are now open!
We had a brilliant time at FOSDEM last year and we're hoping to be back in Brussels in 2026.
If you have a talk, an idea, or something to show off, why not take a look at signing up?
https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/10/31/fosdem-2026-social-web-devroom-call-for-participation/
#FOSDEM #Fediverse #SocialWeb #CallForParticipation #Tech #Brussels #SocialMedia #BuildInPublic
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📣 attention #Fediverse developers and champions 🚨
The Social Web Devroom at #FOSDEM2026 just announced a call for participation, inviting people to submit proposals for talks:
🔗 : https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/10/31/fosdem-2026-social-web-devroom-call-for-participation/
This year's edition (its first) was absolutely EPIC. I got to meet so many Fediverse makers, champions and instance admins.
The 2026 edition will have a new 50 minute talk format... and 10 hours of programming (instead of 5 this year).
Check out the link and submit your idea 😊
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@aral @yunohost @koteisaev @elena This is how we do it.
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I have a confession. I installed my Mastodon server software on my VPS that is marketed as a "storage" VPS. 😎 How awesome is that? 😎 It has a 1TB SSD anyway and 18GB of RAM, so why not increase the RAM usage? 😎
#mastodon #fediverse #selfhosting #vps #storageserver #tech #geek #itstudent #humane_tech #decentralisation #openweb #technology #sysadmin #bigstorage #ram #ssd #doityourself #coding #linux #serverlife #webhosting #diytech #compute #network #activitypub #awesome #engineering
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@mbuzzoni @projetslibres_podcast awww un grand merci Marco (et Walid pour cette merveilleuse opportunité) ❤️
Je vais bientôt écrire un article sur comment installer YunoHost (du point de vue d’une personne sans connaissances techniques) 🤗
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@projetslibres_podcast probablement mon épisode préféré à aujourd'hui !
J'adore l'idée de tendre le micro non seulement à celleux qui font du logiciel libre, mais aussi aux utilisateur.rice.s!
En plus, cette conversation donne vraiment la patate! On sent l'enthousiasme de @_elena, ça donne envie de se lancer!
