What exactly is the Fediverse?

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I think by now pretty much everyone here heard about Matrix at some point or another.

Personally I think Matrix and XMPP belong go the Fediverse in the loose sense. ActivityPub isn't designed for messaging, and they offer good protocols for that.

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So, the term Fediverse basically refers to the ActivityPub protocol and the associated server software. Technically, it's not just ActivityPub, but also the AT protocol and nostr. But another layer to the Fediverse, at least in my mind, is having some federation. Meaning Bluesky isn't apart of the Fediverse, even though it's built on the AT Protocol, because of it's isolation. Since there's no interaction with Lemmy, Mastodon, PixelFed, or other federated social networks, it's not part of the Fediverse.

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It seems like you'd say that Matrix isn't included? It's not ActivityPub/AT/nostr

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I think that ATP and nostr are sometimes included as part of the Fediverse because they both have bridges that allow connection. Without the bridges they're isolated.

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Matrix is not federated, it has nothing to do with the whole ActivityThing. They are two separate universes. Maybe there are bridges that I don't know of, but essentially they are not interconnected.

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It's federated, just not to the ActivityPub universe, right? People have been able to join rooms on discuss.online using their matrix.org accounts, which to me counts as federated.

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According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse:

The majority of Fediverse platforms are based on free and open-source software, and create connections between servers using the ActivityPub protocol. Some software still supports older federation protocols as well, such as OStatus, the Diaspora protocol and Zot. Diaspora* is the only actively developed software project classified under the original definition of Fediverse that does not support ActivityPub.[5][6]

You would have to look at those citations to see how authoritative they are.

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Matrix servers can talk to each other, so yes, they are federated. But Matrix is not ActivityPub.

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ATP still requires millions to host a relay https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/13/24342799/free-our-feeds-social-media-ecosystem-at-protocol-bluesky

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This isn’t the same thing.

Bluesky has something called fedibridge (third party), where your entire account is forwarded to mastodon and acts like a native mastodon account when viewed from mastodon.

A relay is something that hosts the viewable content on the ATprotocol. Currently, the only relay that encompasses the entire AT protocol is hosted by bluesky PBC, though there are a few very small relays for specific niches.

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I was mostly referring to the fact that the day Bluesky decides to ban bridges, ATProto won't be part the Fediverse as per the definition of the comment above.

I personally prefer to just consider them as out from the start.

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If anyone asks me this, I'm going to tell them I don't know but I'm figuring it out as I go along.

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Matrix and XMPP are federated but not part of the Fediverse, which revolves around ActivityPub. While they share the principle of decentralization, the Fediverse specifically connects platforms like Mastodon or Lemmy via ActivityPub. Promoting a Matrix room in Lemmy communities might align with shared values but doesn’t make Matrix part of the Fediverse. Bridging these ecosystems is possible but not inherent.

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Its a series of tubes

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XMPP also has a working ActivityPub bridge. But I think at some point these bridges are a bridge too far.

Software like Friendica or Hubzilla that can speak multiple protocols including AP are clearly part of the Fediverse, but things that need 3rd party bridges IMHO are not, as the creators clearly do no intend them to be part of it. Otherwise Xhitter would be also part of the Fediverse as bridges exist(ed in the past at least).

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Wasn't the Twitter "bridge" just bot accounts though? It's a bit different with Bluesky because they've said that they completely support bridges between AT and AP but just don't have the resources to work on them themselves. Anyway, ActivityPub co-author Even Prodromou gave an interview yesterday where he included Bluesky as part of the Fediverse because of the bridge.

Personally, I consider them to be both part of and not part of the Fediverse, I guess. I wouldn't send someone there and I also kind of think they're a bunch of dicks for re-inventing the wheel instead of contributing improvements here.

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So ... not the combined works (verses) of the famous poet Fedy?

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The fediverse originally had nothing to do with ActivityPub. Diaspora and ostatus were, and still are a part of it.

Although, the term seems to typically fixate on social networking.

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Are you talking about bridgy fed?

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ja fedibridge bridgyfed im mincing words

agnos.is Forums

What exactly is the Fediverse?