Scott M. Stolz

To create something like this, you would need to federate two components, and optionally a third.

1. The applications.
2. The app store.
3. Curation groups.

You would also need to create a standard (a protocol) for the app store to talk to the websites hosting the applications.

Application Hosting: Basically, everyone can create their own website with their own apps. That part would be unmoderated, similar to how you can go to a software publisher’s website today and download a Windows program. They publish their application and data about their apps in a machine readable way where an app store could take that data and create a listing.

The App Store: There would be open source app store code that allows people to run their own app store. The people operating an app store decide what gets listed in the app store. Some app stores will be for a particular niche while some will attempt to list everything. For example, you might have app stores that only have open source software. This would still make the app store operator the gatekeeper, but what is different here is that anyone could use the same software and set up their own app store.

Curation Groups: This allows people or groups to create their own curated list of approved apps. This provides the app stores a shortcut so they don’t have to review every single app themselves. This would allow individuals, communities, associations, and even businesses to create moderated lists of apps they reviewed and believe should be listed in app stores. Mastodon could publish a curated list of Mastodon Apps they recommend. Open source organizations could create a curated list of apps they recommend. The app stores could consume such lists.

People can then choose the app store and the apps they trust. App stores can choose the curated lists they trust.

This is similar to how podcasting platforms work, where a podcaster publishes their audio files and an RSS feed with information about their Podcast, and various Podcast Directories list their podcast. Or similar to how platforms like Steam work, where they list games, many of which can be obtained on the game author’s website as well. The key point being that the authors of the apps can get listed in multiple app stores.

Optionally, both the Application Hosting software and App Store can be integrated with protocols like ActivityPub, AT Protocol, or Nomad/Zot protocol for the purpose of sending out notifications to followers who may be interested in updates and news about the apps or the app store. At the very least, it should list an existing fediverse handle where people can follow them.

So, yes, it can be federated.

To be safe and secure, you would want multiple organizations with resources to run competing app stores using this software and protocol. These organizations can be non-profits, cooperatives, or even small businesses. The reason why is because an organization is more likely to have the resources to moderate the list of apps in their App Store, whereas an individual most likely would not, unless that was their full time job.

Whereas anyone who created an app could run their own website with information about their app, and then request to be listed in various app stores and curated lists.

I think this a great idea!

You also have to consider that some servers are very politically-oriented, and if your political beliefs are not aligned with the administrator or community, then you are likely to get banned or if not banned, made to feel unwelcome. This applies to the left, right, up, or down on the Nolan chart. It is their right to do so, since it is their server, but the result is usually echo chambers that repeat the same talking points. If you like to debate policy, then these are not the communities for you.

If you want to discuss different points of view, you need to find a community that actually wants to debate the issues. Or run your own server and find like-minded friends to talk with.

We never know what the future holds. But one of our goals is to decentralize social media. If we wind up with only a few major players, we have failed in that goal.

A marketplace of apps is actually a good thing. Not everyone wants something based on Twitter (i.e. Mastodon, and similar). Not everyone wants Reddit (Lemmy, Mbin, etc.). Not everyone wants a traditional forum (NodeBB). Not everyone wants a blog (WordPress, Hubzilla, etc.). Not everyone wants Facebook (Friendica, Hubzilla, etc.).

One of the goals is to build increased compatibility between apps so that you can choose which experience you want, yet can still talk to anyone else on the fediverse. Some big players will certainly emerge, but I think that there will always be hundreds of compatible apps.

For some reason, links from a Lemmy top-level post do not show up in Hubzilla. Here is the link for anyone who does not see the link.

#^[1](https://forum.wedistribute.org/topic/9/we-distribute-is-always-looking-for-help)

If you are going to encourage cooperatives, you would need one or more organizations that help people set them up. That way people can learn how to start their own, and what it takes to run one. There are legal considerations, such as taxes and registering the cooperative. And some people would need to learn accounting and leadership skills. This is all learnable, but if we want people to succeed, we would need to help guide them.

For those who are not on Lemmy and can’t see the link on the original post:

#^[1](https://theconversation.com/decentralised-social-media-offers-an-alternative-to-big-tech-platforms-like-x-and-meta-how-does-it-work-podcast-249758)

Even though many fediverse users would not be interested on this, I could see a use case for this.

@astro_ray It’s not my profile. I just picked one at random. :)

@astro_ray This is what it looks like: #^[1](https://spacehey.com/profile?id=3178945)

@Daemon Silverstein ActivityPub is mostly about sending posts and articles.

One relatively easy way to integrate ActivityPub might be to have the snippets be stored in some database on your website, and then have the option to create a post or direct message telling someone about the snippet. If the snippet is short, you could include a code block in the post, or you could provide a link back to the snippet on your website.

If you used something like Hubzilla, you could set permissions, controlling who can see the snippet or post. And, although not really designed for code snippets, Hubzilla does have webpages, articles, and wiki page that support code blocks. Although, now that you mention it, we probably could create an addon specifically for storing code snippets.

If you wanted to sync snippets or import between servers or accounts, that would require more advanced techniques, some of which are not really available over ActivityPub.

@Daemon Silverstein What features are you looking for in particular? An interface that stores code snippets and organizes them would not be too hard to build.

The question is, what federated features would you like to have?

This sounds interesting. I would love to hear about how it could integrate with other platforms.

The third logo is Gravatar, which allows you to set an avatar associated with your email. It is mostly used by blog platforms such as WordPress to associate an avatar with your comments. Many other platforms, such as Hubzilla and many forums, support Gravatar.

Or even change protocols. Mastodon used to use OStatus before it changed to ActivityPub. And some platforms are multi-protocol, like Hubzilla and Friendica. Whether they are compatible depends on which protocols they have turned on.

Or a Hubzilla, Friendica, or NodeBB perspective, because all of those support discussion groups and forums. And you can participate with them over ActivityPub without using their software or creating an account on their server. I am communicating with your using Hubzilla, not Lemmy right now.

I agree that there needs to be some more “killer apps” for the fediverse for it to really take off. Luckily there are some people working on that. Loops and Pixelfed seem to be some recent highlights and are growing fast. And there are other apps that are being worked on that could change things.

One of the problems is that ActivityPub is somewhat limited to what Mastodon has implemented. A lot of other platforms want to implement some cool features, but none of those are supported by Mastodon. This limits the rest of the fediverse since they have to cater to the lowest common denominator.

It is one of the main reasons why Hubzilla still uses Zot6 as its primary protocol, and uses ActivityPub to communicate with everyone else. Hubzilla has features that the rest of the fediverse does not support, such as nomadic identity, privacy, and access control. And related to that, Bluesky also has features that ActivityPub does not support, or if ActivityPub does support it, is not implemented by the larger platforms.

I think this is the primary reason why the fediverse is falling behind. People look at what Mastodon has implemented and think that ActivityPub is weak compared to Zot6 or AT Protocol.

I think the fediverse will continue to grow, and it would mostly be because of projects like Loops and Pixelfed and other new services. But I think that Bluesky has a lead on us and it will continue to grow, mostly because bigger players with money can afford to actually build on the AT Protocol, which has higher hardware requirements.

Eventually, thanks to bridges and multi-protocol platforms, there will be a multi-protocol network, with big players who have money using AT Protocol, and people who want to start a server on a lower budget using ActivityPub.

In the short term, I think that Bridgy Fed’s multi-protocol bridge has a better chance of decentralizing Bluesky than Bluesky.