@smallcircles @strypey @FinchHaven @naturzukunft2026

Hi, author of some things here. I can assure you that that is more of that big bad "semantic web" stuff baked into #ActivityPub than there is to #SolidProject but people spin things as they want to for a narrative. That said, totally agree with you that do x and y will come is not enough. Folks conflate various variables or attempt to boil things down to a single perspective. The reality is far more strange and unpredictable.

@strypey @FinchHaven @naturzukunft2026

For the sake of further clarity I should point to your starting post and this text:

> we need domain-specific applications that leverage ActivityPub’s full semantic potential

And remark that in my opinion and by observation, tapping the sign "Reminder: #ActivityPub is #JSONLD, folks!" isn't enough. Much more is needed than pointing to the #OpenStandards to win back developers minds to adopt #LinkedData. There is a high reluctance and resistance to adoption that must be overcome.

Referring again to that adoption chart I drafted the other day - which is about #SolidProject, but this is where LD is strong(est?) today - "build open standards, and they will come" isn't going so well. I hope that changes, as I have always been a fan of the *notion* of the semantic web. Yet in role of a technology decision maker, not ready to bet on it for a social networking environment.

@damon

Thank you. Yes, indeed. As it happens I was just in chat with Sébastien yesterday. They'll give a presentation at the #Solid Practitioners Meetings on the 5th of March.

#ActivityPods is positioned to bring "app development" to the intersection of the #ActivityPub and #SolidProject ecosystems, and that is very valuable. And also an #OpenStandards focused initiative.

I have revamped the #fediverse delightful lists to de-emphasize app domains and apps that have already established themselves, to highlight the innovative projects that can bring fedi to higher levels. @activitypods is on the developer list.. https://delightful.coding.social/delightful-fediverse-development/#application-development

They are well positioned to offer the 'Solution developer' stakeholders an attractive set of tools. And the opportunity is to marriage the best of 2 worlds. Which is at the same time the big challenge, coping with the worst of 2 worlds. The other day I tooted about this here: https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116113963712755122

@reiver @thisismissem @mfru

Here's the diagram btw: https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116113963712755122

The problem of #SolidProject knowing what it is, is more an inherited problem of #LinkedData / #SemanticWeb knowing what it is.

Semantic web always was "if only all information on the web were semantic and machine-readable, then...". And there it stopped. Presumably magic would happen.

And perhaps it would. But to make such a big leap, a paradigm shift of the entire web, along the way you have inspire a whole lot of people to set the (r)evolution in motion and keep it going.

If you look at what linked data is, it is a very low-level format. Nice if you have it, but now what are you going to build with it? There are some good application areas, but the case for linked data elsewhere is not a given.

Still today there are regular discussions on 'what would be the killer app for Solid' or linked data in general. Saw some interest for LLM's fed semantic data to make them more deterministic. I'm not interested.

@reiver @thisismissem @mfru

I made a diagram yesterday that contrasts #ActivityPub and #SolidProject that is I think interesting to consider.

In the past I've been very active on the Solid forum, and tried to get a collab going with #SocialHub community. A number of points that existed then, are still issues today I think.

Like, though anyone could participate in the standards process via chat, the Solid team and Inrupt were not really interested in their community, hardly giving attention while people were building interesting stuff there.

Also at the time basically all available code was Javascript, making Solid uninteresting or hard to access for other language devs.

But I think biggest issue was that Solid didn't know what it was. It was positioned as 'personal data vault' on the landing page then (but not using this term), but was 'secretly' TBL's desire to reboot the #SemanticWeb. The new web would be all 'Solid apps'. But the adoption strategy for that didn't exist.

@david_megginson @ben

Though with regards to progress, there's a difference in both approaches.

At the #SolidProject side you have inertia by the slow standardization process. But should they figure things out in a good way, eventually the ecosystem catches up and the inertia can quickly decrease.

While at #ActivityPub side, since AS/AP remains stagnant, the ever increasing protocol decay and tech debt non-linearly increases inertia and progress. And on top of that, you are never done once you implemented the 'ad-hoc specs' of the installed base, and you have to account for continuous whack-a-mole development and maintenance burdens to fix #interoperability breakages.

The AS/AP based fediverse devolves into effectively no interoperability, and a situation that is more comporative to NPM dependency hell.