@dmathieu

I'd say yes. There is not an actual definition what member of / part of the fediverse means, or even what the fediverse is and isn't.

@smallcircles that means you're only federating with one thing though. To me, the entire point of the fediverse is to federate with every other player.

@smallcircles in this case, you can't follow unless nodeinfo gives the proper software name. So one can't build new software meant to interact with this one.

@dmathieu@fosstodon.org no. You're just implementing Activitypub

@dmathieu

NodeInfo isn't part of #ActivityPub and neither is it required to be implemented by fedi software.

What #fediverse is and isn't is an interesting question. Does following between actors make the software on both ends part of the fediverse? Should a fediverse app support #microblogging? Be compatible with Mastodon?

Perhaps being part of fediverse means if 2 independent 3rd-parties are able to interoperate with each other? Does that require sending Follow msgs?

If someone has a federated Product catalogue that federates with itself and a 3rd-party Order delivery service, is it part of the fediverse? Even when no Follow is sent?

It is undefined what being part of the fediverse means. There used to be a Federated Network Association (Feneas) as a major dev community besides #SocialHub, which defined fediverse as any software that implemented AP, #XMPP, or #Matrix protocol.

@steve even wrote that nothing even truly implements AP, and I tend to agree.

https://www.stevebate.net/nothin-implements-activitypub/

@smallcircles @steve well, in this case, 2 independent 3rd-parties can't interoperate with each other unless they are the exact same software. This is not interoperability.

@dmathieu @steve

What fediverse is is in the eye of the beholder. Everyone has their own idea about it. That's kind of okay, I guess. There is a similar vagueness to what it means to be part of the web, though there's a technical definition to it.

If there were only Mastodon, would there still be a fediverse with millions of people on it? It'd become superfuous perhaps. Many people already call the fediverse "Mastodon".

For social networking I use the definition: Any direct or indirect human interaction between people. Which includes both offline and online.

For the ActivityPub social network I take the conceptual architecture the open standard provides: A social graph of addressible actors that exchange activities with an object payload.

And that I call the fediverse social networking environment. I consider fediverse a generic category word, same as web, and internet.

Most people think of "existing social media.. but decentralized", Twitter, Facebook, Youtube et al done better.

@dmathieu you are not, but who cares; anyone can fire up a new proprietary "social network" if they want to lose money and be ignored.

@dmathieu@fosstodon.org Philosophically, as long as you have independent instances: You're making a competitor. And hoping to become dominant? So other software needs to incorporate your incompatibilities to be able to interoperate with you. .. There are arguments to be made actually. If something security-related makes your Actors incompatible with existing ones but you cannot compromise on those choices.

@boiert this was not philosophical. There is an actual AP implementation that looks for nodeinfo data to ensure the instance on the other end has the same application name, and refuses any follow if they don't. The actors are entirely compatible.