this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2021
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Asklemmy
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I hope the opposite i.e. using Matrix protocol for federation instead of ActivityPub, this would solve a lot of problems with federation and enable chats like you wish.
What problems would this solve with federation? Seems like it would cut us off from sites like Mastodon
Did you not realize that if your instance has not yet interacted with another and you want to see the profile of a user you will never see his old posts but you will only receive new ones if you click "follow"? Or the busted counters that are different depending on how your instance is connected to the others? Practically with ActivityPub the information hardly spreads, with Matrix you have the assured consistency.
And then the Access Control Lists, they are not supported by ActivityPub so no stuff like private groups. When it comes to Matrix,they are built-in.
And Matrix defines APIs for both server-to-server federation and client-server communication, while ActivityPub is currently only used for federation. Client-server ActivityPub APIs have been discarded in favor of thin-client APIs such as Mastodon's.
Matrix continually adds new features. ActivityPub is stopped and too generic, it could be expanded in many ways for different use cases but each group of people works on it separately and for now without big results (see ForgeFed).
Lemmy's goal is to be a link aggregator for the Fediverse, switching to the Matrix protocol would completely abandon that. Switching is simply out of question for the project as far as I know. Lemmy is also not even close to a finished product yet so current issues with federation are expected.
I'm not talking about Lemmy, but the entire Fediverse. Matrix is not for instant messaging only, as its authors keep saying. Matrix is basically a decentralized database for real-time content with permissions and end-to-end encryption built-in. ActivityPub is good only for public content and can't guarantee a modern user experience when it comes to federation, as I said as the network grows it adds inconsistencies and common users are confused by it.
P.S. nothing stops someone from implementing both Matrix and ActivityPub on the same server: the former to federate with other Matrix servers and the latter to keep the federation with Mastodon & Co.