[GMG-Devel] The ActivityPub standard needs your review!

[Christopher Allan Webber]

Hello all,

Last week I was at TPAC, and a lot has happened.  I'm trying to work it
all into a new "state of the goblin" type blogpost, but there's a lot of
it, and it's taking a while.  But here's a condensed version, which is
also a call for help!

Demos, live!  And etc.
======================

Lots of progress was made, and I even demo'ed ActivityPub
implementations live... a server to server implementation written in
Guile with "Pubstrate" and a client to server implementation written in
emacs lisp (heh!) called soci-el.  Here they are, interacting!

  http://dustycloud.org/gfx/goodies/pubstrate-2016-09-14.png
    ^- messages rendered in pubstrate
  http://dustycloud.org/gfx/goodies/soci-el-2016-09-14.png
    ^- composing the message, rendering inbox/outbox

I did a live demo of this at TPAC, including client to server stuff and
federation, to a nearly packed room, and all went pretty well.  No
blowups or anything!  For those of you who have done live demos of alpha
code, you know how nervewracking this can be.  Throw federation on top
of it... ;)

Anyway, the summary here is: ActivityPub is in a pretty good state, and
we've even shown publicly that it can work.

But now that leads to...


A call for help
===============

ActivityPub is set to go to Candidate Recommendation status, hopefully
by October 11th.  We need to hit this timeline, because the Social
Working Group's charter ends by the end of 2016... hence why I've been
in such a scramble to work on this.

Before we can enter that, we need "wide review".  In other words, we
need *your help* in reviewing.  This goes for everyone (especially
anyone considering implementing or being involved in an implementation,
but really, everyone!).  Please read and review!

The latest working draft is here (that's like the latest release):
  https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/

The latest editor's draft (akin to "git master" branch):
  https://w3c-social.github.io/activitypub/

(Sorry for the sappy micro-love-note, those are screenshots from when
I was showing things working to my spouse.)

(Also, apologies for the GitHub link... I chose my battles in this
group, and even though I think using GitHub is of tremendous irony here,
the working group in general decided to use it and I decided to save
fighting for the most important things in the standard.)

If you have feedback, please give it!  You can provide it in a number of
ways:
 - Reply to this thread!
 - File issues on the issue tracker:
   https://github.com/w3c-social/activitypub/issues
 - Email me, personally (though know that I'll be putting your comments
   publicly on the social working group wiki, though you can be
   anonymous if you like): send to cwebber AT dustycloud DOT org,
   with "ActivityPub" somewhere in the subject.
 - Send to the public-socialweb-comments list:
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-socialweb-comments/

Thank you!  We're working hard to make standardized federation a
reality, and of course, MediaGoblin will be implementing ActivityPub
itself.

Look forward to your feedback!
 - Christopher Allan Webber
   on behalf of ActivityPub and the Social Working Group