On fediverse apps like Mastodon, Pixelfed and (soon) Threads, content is federated — but identity isn’t. We look at potential solutions.

In response to Bray’s toot, Evan Prodromou — one of the creators of ActivityPub, who is currently writing an O’Reilly book about the protocol — noted that this “is also the argument for using the ActivityPub API.” He described the API as “an open, extensible API that can handle any kind of activity type — not just short text.”

This gets to the nub of the issue. The fact that I can’t use my Mastodon identity to, for example, sign up to Pixelfed is not actually an ActivityPub issue — it’s because the two applications, Mastodon and Pixelfed, each require you to create an account on their respective products. What Prodromou is suggesting is that, technically, you can use the ActivityPub API for account access.

  • GlitterInfection@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Nothing about this idea implies centralization. There is no reason identity has to be tied to the platform using the identity and no reason why there needs to be a central identity store.

    In fact, right now my identity IS centralized to lemmy.world and I have no control over that.

    Your solution to create as many identities as you want is great for avoiding having one identity, but not an example of decentralized identity.

    I would like to be able to have multiple, decentralized, identities.