Noel De Martin @noeldemartin@noeldemartin.social

@weareopencoop @epilepticrabbit @dajbelshaw But at the same time, I do understand why most people don't want to self-host. Personally I think the problem is actually how software is architected, with data being coupled to apps. If something like Solid or other zero data protocols were more widespread, it would be a lot easier to use software that is aligned with our ideals.

PS: I think Doug's microphone is fine, but I've been looking into buying one recently so I'll be sure to avoid that one xD

@weareopencoop @epilepticrabbit @dajbelshaw I think there are a couple of reasons why it's been easy so far. The first one is that I'm the only one using these services, so I don't have to cater to anyone else's needs. And the second is that I rarely install updates, which I am aware is a security risk but to be honest I'm not too worried. I think software can be a lot more stable than people think.

@weareopencoop @epilepticrabbit @dajbelshaw I've been "self-hosting" (on DigitalOcean) a couple of sites and services for a few years and I have to say, as much as I dreaded the prospect of maintaining servers it's been pretty easy so far. I self-host my personal website, this Mastodon instance, and my personal Solid POD (Solid is a protocol for data storage).

Yesterday I reached 2000 movies in my Media Kraken collection, and I've watched 1208. It will probably continue growing at a quicker rate than I watch them, but I love having my own list. I never have to wonder what to watch next when I'm in the mood for a movie :D.

@nolan But wouldn't you need to have an html file with that name? For example, if I'm trying to have the url /user/123456, don't I need to have a /user/123456.html static file?

Maybe this can be worked around if the server allows you to customize the 404 html, and implement your thing in there. But the status code would still be a 404 I think, right?

Well in any case, regardless of it being possible or not I think we'd agree that by that point the complexity is not too far from doing an SPA :)

@nolan Yeah I also thought of something like that, but I guess you can't have dynamic urls, right? You have to resort to using query parameters or url fragments.

@nolan Another thing MPAs don't do (and probably never will): serve apps without the server-side hassle. There are many services and ways to host static apps easily and for free (it's arguable whether this is good, but it lowers the barrier of entry). But as soon as you need a server component, things get a lot more complicated. Building it this way also makes apps more portable.

Maybe I'm mistaken about the hassle of server-side computing though? That's been my experience at least.

@ccamara @humanetech @kytta @VincentTunru The only question that comes to mind is that all of this needs to happen in the server-side, right? At the moment, I am building my apps completely in the client-side, so I'm not sure how I'd manage to do anything with ActivityPub under that constraint.

In any case, I don't think I'll look into this anytime soon, because I want to focus on finishing the first version. But thanks for the ideas :).

@ccamara @humanetech @kytta @VincentTunru I see, I guess my notion of ActivityPub is indeed colored by the apps I've used or seen :).

I did know about Funkwhale, but I don't understand how it's using ActivityPub either so I guess I'll take a look. I do like the idea of enabling recipe variants, modifications, and such.

@VincentTunru @kytta Hey I'm curious about these use-cases. Why would you want a recipes app powered by Activity Pub? I've seen other people mentioning this type of thing before, but AFAIK Activity Pub is intended for social network-type apps, and a recipes manager doesn't fit that description. Is it in order to add comments to recipes and such? Or if you want to share the recipes, would posting a toot with a link to the recipe be enough?

I'll be in Amsterdam next week for #LaraconEU and I'm looking for a co-working space to go on Monday. Any suggestions?

The Laravel conference I was going to attend in Amsterdam was cancelled, but it's finally been re-scheduled for April 26th. This time it looks a lot more sure to happen 🤞 See you there #LaraconEU!

@VincentTunru I've been using it for a while and I like the idea, but the experience has been quite bad to make it work with Vite :/ I had it working, but now it's broken after I updated some dependencies. I'll have to give Vitebook a try, but it seems like it's still very experimental https://github.com/vitebook/vitebook

#NewProfilePic I've changed my avatar for the first in almost 8 years! And I've got @flicknelson@twitter.com to thank. For those who don't know him; he's designed the last couple of Laracon websites. So I'm very happy to both renew my image and strengthen my identity as a Laravel fanboy :).

@humanetech @baldur @benwerd Yeah, I'm "following closely" the Solid project and I don't know much about that project either. I just know they are working with the government and plan to give PODs to each citizen. Just what I've read on Inrupt's blog and some announcements in Solid World.

The community part definitely has a lot of room for improvement. But I know that's not Inrupt's main goal. The problem is that nobody is taking care of that.

@humanetech @baldur @benwerd I don't think Tim is acting as BDFL, and the spec is not driven by Inrupt. As far as I know, all the discussions regarding the spec are public and work like any other W3C standard. For example, this one recently happened and not everyone who participated is employed by Inrupt: https://github.com/solid/specification/issues/227

But yes, it's true that *most* people is involved with Inrupt. I think that's just because not enough people outside of Inrupt is interested to join.

@humanetech @baldur @benwerd Yes I agree that the boundary between Inrupt and the Solid Community is fuzzy, and maybe there's not as much activity in the community as we would like. But I just wanted to clear up that it's definitely not 100% commercial. As to how much % is commercial or not, that's up for debate.

@humanetech @baldur @benwerd Sure, I agree that those problems exist. And I agree that what happened with the web is very unlikely to happen with Solid. But anyone reading that article without any context may think that Tim's idea of Solid is a startup, and that he's given up on his public-minded ideals. But I don't think that's true.

The fact of how it's turning out is a different topic. If Tim created the web today with the same mindset, it wouldn't produce the same results either.

@baldur @benwerd I agree with 99% of the post, but I want to point out that Tim Berners-Lee subsequent attempt is not a startup. The correct link to refer to Solid is solidproject.org. There are others working on Solid besides Inrupt, and that includes indie developers with no eyes on profit (such as me). Even Tim Berners-Lee's involvement with Solid is not purely commercial. That doesn't invalidate the main point of the article, but I think it's important to make the distinction.

@rosano You published this a while ago, right? It'd be useful to see dates on those publications :) I understand it's like a digital garden and you may edit it at any time... But maybe you could show "original publication" and "last update" or something.