Here is a post from the developer on the AT-AP connection (bridgy fed).
Please read it, and there’s a very good discussion in the responses, too.
Also as I discussed offside with another user: all this panic is missing the biggest thing here - it GOES BOTH WAYS. And if the past bridges to twit spaces are any indication, it isn’t going to be “them” trying to follow “us”. The bridge will allow US to follow our contacts who went to Bsky rather than mastodon.
@Johannab#blueskybridge#opt-out There are issues with Bsky’s bridge (and other bridges) obviously, else there wouldn’t be a discussion. In the end, isn’t it about communities vs corporatism? I’m happy connecting to my community and other ‘communities’ but connecting to a money-making enterprise, that’s crossing the line and requires my ‘informed consent’. As for the technical details, not my area of expertise. IMHO
@RaymondPierreL3 I’m sorry but I don’t see it this way at all. Any “issues” with bridge software are the functional ones that the VOLUNTEER developers providing FREE utilities can address when they have time.
The outcry going on now is revealing how many people have utterly failed to understand the system they have chosen to participate in and what is and is not in scope in the ActivityPub protocol and the whole concept of federation.
@Johannab@RaymondPierreL3 as I’ve posted a couple of times, I’m technically clueless. My beef boils down to the possible ‘commercialisation’ (monetisation) of posts and profiles by unscrupulous social networks which in my view requires Opt-in on an individual basis. How this can be done? I have no idea. What I really don’t want is the ‘enshitification’ of a community-focused fediverse (if that makes sense). Thank you to all the volunteers for my currently pleasurable time on a Mast instance. Aside from the technical aspects, the fediverse is only going to remain as ‘good’ as the peeps signed onto the platform IMO. To date, these are ‘good’ peeps. Let’s keep it that way. Thank you all. #blueskybridge#fediverse
@RaymondPierreL3@Johannab "community-focused fediverse" doesn't really exist unless they turned off federation completely.
I see your post by default (opt-out) on my own instance in the US. Nobody else has access to my instance but me, yet your post is here and we've never communicated before.
The Fediverse is fundamentally a worldwide open protocol by design. This has always been the case and probably won't be changing.
@BeAware@RaymondPierreL3@Johannab that is so sad. Thank you for the wake up call. I’m not sure how I am going to deal with it. Perhaps redact my profile, only post anodyne stuff, and stay out of serious discussions. Otherwise, rely on my ‘instance’ moderation team to do the right thing? Can my ‘instance’ team even protect me from commercialisation/monetisation? I shouldn’t be surprised, I know, even in RL communities can turn toxic. Clubs that were once friendly and safe can turn nasty and threatening. So why should it be different in the ether? Maybe I should accept it, toughen up but still play nice. I guess this is my last post on this #blueskybridge#fediverse subject. Play it by ear, see what happens, act accordingly.
@RaymondPierreL3@Johannab you're ALWAYS free to take that power back by starting up your own instance. But that will confirm to you that this is opt-out by design. You will see stuff on Fedi you might have never seen and it might shock you.
The easiest way to start up your own instance, is @mastohost which is run by a nice man named Hugo. He's VERY helpful and will get you set right up.
@RaymondPierreL3@BeAware Raymond, I don’t think there’s any reason for despair here. There is a reason to better understand what is going on.
People seem to be leaving the walled-off corporate, controlled, you-only-get-what-you(we)-want-you-to platforms, and moving to federated platforms like Mastodon with the expectation that it’s exactly the same thing and that we’ll just be “nicer” in your particular view.
That’s unfortunately not ANYTHING like reality, and not what was ever offered.
@RaymondPierreL3@BeAware Admins and mods in this present kerfuffle (just the latest one) are seemingly expected to play nanny over this. It seems people WANT an algorithm and a corporate overlord, they just want one that does what THEY want.
The thing here is, YOU do what you want. You block what you don’t want to interact with - account or instance - and a “bridge” is just an instance.
I highly doubt right now anyone’s monetizing much of the firehose of the federated timeline …
@RaymondPierreL3@BeAware … but if someone wants to - the capability is already here. We’ve had bridges for years with Twitter, at least until Twitter broke most of them. There are one-off software systems out there that a single person has built from scratch that do all kinds of things. Scrapers are running.
If you want to protect your content, YOU get to do it yourself, either by going through all your profile settings, or finding a host that will do it for you.
@Johannab@RaymondPierreL3@BeAware so maybe I’m making out like I’m a total helpless victim here. I’m not. I know what I signed up for when I joined the @aus.social instance because there are ‘rules’ on this platform and a team moderating in accordance with those rules (as well as some slick admins). So, instance-wise, I’m very happy to be here. And, yes, I block what I do not want to see (so far it’s all been from other instances) and I’ll keep doing that. My fight isn’t with anyone on here, not any particular instance as such. My fight is against corporatism looking after shareholders and the lenght some of these corporations/companies go to to monetise the information they collect (illegally in some countries). I think the fediverse is a great technolgy. Power to those developing the various components. Melon Husk and his $$$-likes can just stay out of it. I’m not entirely clueless either (IT Enterprise Architect for many yrs). But technology changes, new protocols are distributed, code and languages change and I’ve left the industry more than a decade ago. Ergo, I plead ignorance until informed. Just so the record is straight.
@RaymondPierreL3 Any implication of that on my part was entirely not what was intended - if it came through that way, I apologize!
I think we can all go refill the coffee cups and breathe. The Zeitgeist will shift, in hours or days, as always.
As a community admin, the “voice” of my instance’s team in ways (though I don’t like that, always) - I’m advocating and trying to propagate for everyone to have a better understanding of what is and isn’t really going on with this proposed bridge, is all
@RaymondPierreL3 Unfortunately, because “federated”, hahaha, I end up doing this with absolutely no ability to gauge who my audience is or what their background is or isn’t. So toes, or metaphorical land mines in some cases, get stepped on … heh.
Raymond, I really don’t think we have to worry about it. Bluesky is a public benefit corp that is aiming at creating a competitor to ActivityPub, and a competitor to Mastodon. The extant Bluesky instance is analogous to Mastodon.social, but walled off.
@RaymondPierreL3 For Bsky, “federating” is about releasing their server software so other entities can start their own instance running a communications service over their AT protocol.
We have NO IDEA which, how many, or if any of those will be the domain of Evil Corporate Overlords(tm). Most of their users won’t either, and won’t care.
The only thing the bridge does is let notes be passed in and out of windows in their walls, user-to-user.