16:35:44 <RRSAgent> RRSAgent has joined #social
16:35:44 <RRSAgent> logging to https://www.w3.org/2021/05/21-social-irc
16:35:48 <Zakim> Zakim has joined #social
16:35:56 <rhiaro> Zakim, this is Social Web Incubator CG
16:35:56 <Zakim> got it, rhiaro
16:36:02 <rhiaro> Zakim, please start meeting
16:36:02 <Zakim> RRSAgent, make logs Public
16:36:03 <Zakim> please title this meeting ("meeting: ..."), rhiaro
16:36:11 <rhiaro> meeting: Social Web Incubator CG
16:36:14 <rhiaro> chair: dmitriz
16:36:47 <rhiaro> chair: dmitriz
16:42:39 <dmitriz> agenda: https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/2021-05-21-socialcg-meeting/1788
16:56:05 <Grishka> Grishka has joined #social
16:59:43 <syndic-will[m]> Hi I will be just a few minutes late but I'm coming
16:59:57 <dmitriz> np
17:01:11 <dmitriz> starting meeting at https://bbb.w3c.social/b/rhi-vp1-fv6-vn7, come on over everyone.
17:05:43 <Grishka> where's Sebastian?
17:05:52 <dmitriz> scribe+ dmitriz
17:06:04 <dmitriz> welcome everyone, might be a super quick meeting today
17:06:08 <dmitriz> let's do quick re-intros
17:07:16 <dmitriz> Robert: hi everyone. I know Dmitri from the Open Metaverse Interop Group. I'm super interested in ActivityPub and how it applies to Metaverse tech
17:07:45 <dmitriz> grishka: I'm interested in AP because I'm fed up with attention economy tech, and want ppl to have social networking that's free of all these commercial interests that hurt the modern net
17:09:19 <dmitriz> Will: I'm a developer of Immerspace, an AP server for Immersive Web Experiences (Metaverse)
17:11:24 <dmitriz> Robert: (intro to the Open Metaverse Interop Group)
17:11:34 <dmitriz> ... I'm acting chair now, but we're doing Chair nominations and elections
17:11:46 <dmitriz> ... over at https://github.com/omigroup/OMI/discussions/17
17:12:08 <dmitriz> ... a little about the group: we're working on specs & protocols on Metaverse interop
17:12:30 <dmitriz> ... which basically means - VR/AR; you should be able to go between various servers and virtual experiences, and take identity / inventory / social graph with you, seamlessly
17:12:39 <dmitriz> ... as well as maintain ownership of various assets, etc.
17:12:44 <dmitriz> ... so basically, open ecosystem of data
17:13:33 <dmitriz> Will: Robert, are you looking specifically for nominees from SocialCGs?
17:14:04 <dmitriz> Robert: sure, we're open to different possibilities. I think that someone from this group should definitely have active involvement with the group
17:14:08 <dmitriz> ... either as chair, or as whatever else
17:14:29 <dmitriz> ... since OMI definitely wants to work with SocialCG, not to duplicate efforts, etc. And we're interested in ActivityPub specifically
17:14:48 <dmitriz> q+
17:15:26 <dmitriz> Robert: other tech has been brought up - Matrix for chat, DIDs (Decentralized Idnetifiers) for identity, that sort of thing
17:15:37 <dmitriz> ... and we're interested in interop between those and ActivityPub.
17:15:46 <dmitriz> ... so, in short: please nominate for chairs!
17:15:48 <dmitriz> ack dmitriz
17:16:32 <syndic-will[m]> Dmitri: suggestion re nominatoins if group still gathering momentum
17:16:52 <syndic-will[m]> ... not sure if all good chair candidates have heard of the group yet may be idea to take backoff approach to chairs
17:17:11 <syndic-will[m]> ... meaning set short term for first chairs (e.g. 1mo, 3mo) to get things started
17:17:35 <dmitriz> Will: Dmitri, quick question - is it common to have cross-pollination between CGs like that?
17:18:03 <cwebber2> cwebber2 has joined #social
17:18:16 <dmitriz> dmitriz: yes, very much so
17:18:31 <dmitriz> update on PROPOSAL: Rank choice meeting times for the weekend SocialCG Meeting
17:18:40 <dmitriz> https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/proposal-rank-choice-meeting-times-for-the-weekend-socialcg-meeting/1713
17:21:00 <dmitriz> dmitriz: ok, that's it for our formal agenda.
17:21:06 <dmitriz> ... other suggestions / questions / topics?
17:21:10 <dmitriz> Robert: question about the ecosystem
17:21:24 <dmitriz> ... what are the major SocialCG / ActivityPub implementations out there, aside from mastodon?
17:21:36 <dmitriz> Gregory: I'm working on an AP type server, Smithereens (sp?)
17:21:54 <dmitriz> ... it's not easily approachable (I'm incubating it for now before wider publishing). I'm a few features away from feature parity with Mastodon
17:22:01 <dmitriz> ... but it's definitely pushing boundaries there
17:22:30 <dmitriz> dmitriz: I also want to mention the express-activitypub server
17:23:08 <dmitriz> Will: right, so, activitypub-express, and GoFed Activity (sp)
17:23:15 <dmitriz> ... which are general-purpose libraries implementing AP
17:23:25 <dmitriz> ... and everything else is a full stack approach, like Mastodon, Pleroma, Smithereens
17:23:45 <dmitriz> ... but these two (-express and gofed) are lightweight general purpose libs
17:23:53 <dmitriz> ... oh, and I'll also mention my other project, Guppy
17:23:55 <xmpp-social> xmpp-social has joined #social
17:24:11 <dmitriz> ... if you look up an actor, it'll create one immediately & return to you. if you mention an actor, it automatically re-shares
17:24:16 <Grishka> q+
17:24:16 <dmitriz> ... this implements lightweight groups
17:24:22 <rhiaro> scribe: dmitriz
17:24:28 <dmitriz> whoops
17:24:34 <dmitriz> ack Grishka
17:24:45 <dmitriz> Grishka: Smithereen has native support for groups as well
17:24:48 <syndic-will[m]> https://github.com/immers-space/activitypub-express
17:25:06 <syndic-will[m]> https://gup.pe
17:25:11 <syndic-will[m]> q+
17:25:15 <dmitriz> Grishka: not compatible with Mastodon though
17:25:35 <dmitriz> dmitriz: other implementations?
17:25:45 <syndic-will[m]> https://github.com/go-fed/activity
17:25:48 <dmitriz> ack
17:26:18 <dmitriz> Robert: I think it's ok for people to use subsets of AP. it poses the question of - what's the minimal useful AP subset? that still feels interoperable?
17:26:24 <dmitriz> ... that has the goals of the community in mind?
17:26:31 <dmitriz> ... so for example, right now we're discussing identity
17:26:42 <dmitriz> ... if we only implemented the Actor object -- is that a good start? will that be useful, by itself?
17:27:00 <dmitriz> Grishka: I think there's one important thing
17:27:10 <dmitriz> ... if two implementations have features that intersect, they really should be interoperable
17:27:25 <dmitriz> ... for example, if two impls have Wall Posts, they should really work together
17:27:32 <dmitriz> ... same with Groups, forum-style discussions, so on
17:27:50 <syndic-will[m]> dmitri: bring sup question of protocols v data models
17:27:52 <syndic-will[m]> ...
17:28:10 <syndic-will[m]> ...ap is lightweight protocol, but projects must also share vocab/data models
17:28:37 <syndic-will[m]> ... there's room for profiles of specs or meta specs. there's a reason we having meetings to do work to see what the minimal subset is
17:29:07 <syndic-will[m]> ... to answer Robert's q, what is the minimal subset is something a lot of people ae asking
17:29:32 <syndic-will[m]> ... e.g. should Mastodon compat be the base or should it be a discussion in the socialhub forum
17:29:57 <dmitriz> Grishka: the really minimum AP implementation is - an Actor object that has an Inbox. and that's it
17:30:07 <dmitriz> Robert: that's a good place for us to start!
17:30:16 <dmitriz> ... if we can just get a single place to pull identity (profile like stuff)
17:30:35 <dmitriz> ... stuff like display name, url to an avatar model, that sort of thing. super basic, but really useful to us
17:31:01 <dmitriz> Grishka: interesting, since you're relying on 3D avatar models - is there a single format for those?
17:31:09 <dmitriz> Robert: no, there's many. I worked on GLTF for example
17:31:19 <dmitriz> ... and that's becoming the defacto transmission standard
17:31:36 <dmitriz> ... there's lots of /authoring/ standards, but as far as trasmission, to use at runtime, it's basically standardizing on 3-4 main ones
17:31:56 <dmitriz> ... FBX
17:32:05 <dmitriz> ... which is Autodesk's format
17:32:23 <dmitriz> ... which is under their control. (so, not necessarily as appealing for open standards)
17:32:36 <dmitriz> ... you've got OBJ, which is not a compressed format, and not a lot of 3d material features. but, very popular
17:32:43 <dmitriz> ... it's like the CSV of 3D
17:32:52 <dmitriz> ... and then you have what Apple has been doing with USDZ
17:33:04 <dmitriz> ... developed at Pixar, offline rendering at animation studios, etc
17:33:16 <dmitriz> ... so the -Z variant of it is, for the most part, under Apple's and Pixar's control
17:33:28 <dmitriz> ... but, GLTF is gaining a lot of deployment
17:33:35 <dmitriz> ... on Sketchfab, etc
17:33:39 <dmitriz> ... internally at MSFT, FB
17:33:45 <dmitriz> ... so, very wide adoption
17:34:04 <dmitriz> ... then there's an avatar-specific subset called VRM, coming out of a lot of the hype around what are called "V-tubers",
17:34:19 <dmitriz> ... which are video content creators that are piloting VR avatars, livestreaming etc
17:34:34 <dmitriz> ... so they've made this avatar format in that industry, which is making its way into game studios and so on
17:36:00 <dmitriz> will: one thing we can do with json-ld and activitypub is -- we can do content negotiation
17:36:06 <dmitriz> ... and specify multiple formats
17:36:23 <dmitriz> will: do you know if anybody is doing that?
17:36:37 <dmitriz> Robert: I know there are multiple platforms that support multiple avatar formats
17:36:46 <dmitriz> will: I meant on the AP side
17:36:52 <dmitriz> grishka: I tried
17:37:01 <dmitriz> robert: is it coming for images & video? doing conneg?
17:37:23 <dmitriz> grishka: yes. so for example, I store images in webp internally. and settled on serving them as jpg, since that's what everyone is guaranteed to understand
17:37:28 <dmitriz> dmitriz: jpg, not png?
17:37:37 <dmitriz> grishka: ah no, png is lossless compression
17:37:43 <dmitriz> ... don't want huge files
17:38:23 <dmitriz> dmitriz: yeah, that's the challenge with content negotiation
17:38:28 <dmitriz> ... it's great, but also... rarely used
17:38:34 <dmitriz> ... people just use lowest common denominator
17:38:40 <dmitriz> Robert: yeah, that's happening in the VR world as well
17:38:50 <dmitriz> ... default material types, etc
17:39:11 <dmitriz> ... so you can specify custom ones, with generic callbacks
17:39:29 <dmitriz> (fallbacks)(
17:39:42 <dmitriz> grishka: the thing about WebP is that many languages have standard libs on it
17:40:04 <dmitriz> ... like, Java doesn't have it built into the standard lib, I had to use external
17:40:39 <dmitriz> humbletim: observation - conneg is a complex dance
17:40:57 <dmitriz> ... that doesn't seem to be used that often. but also, remember how many emergent web browsers there were in the formative web
17:41:06 <dmitriz> ... whereas in the Metaverse, we literally have hundreds of different platforms
17:41:13 <dmitriz> ... so, conneg becomes THAT much more important
17:41:18 <dmitriz> ... because hundreds of different user agents
17:41:31 <dmitriz> dmitriz: that's a really good point!
17:41:52 <dmitriz> robert: has this been a challenge in the fediverse/AP community? with images and video content?
17:42:50 <dmitriz> bengo: not sure
17:43:39 <dmitriz> bengo: I feel like conneg is sort of built into AP
17:43:49 <dmitriz> ... in terms of the Accept header. so, you could throw mime types on there etc
17:44:19 <dmitriz> dmitriz: robert, do GLTF and other formats have their own mime-types yet?
17:44:28 <dmitriz> robert: gltf does, VRM does not (it's a superset of gltf)
17:45:02 <dmitriz> humbletim: even if the negotiation was more of a rejection, that would be useful too
17:45:10 <dmitriz> ... like "here's an avatar, it's GLTF, also VRM"
17:45:20 <dmitriz> ... so a receiver would know up front, whether they'd be capable of handling it etc
17:45:39 <dmitriz> dmitriz: yeah, +1
17:46:28 <dmitriz> ... also brings up our eternal favorite topic of Server Capability Discovery
17:46:45 <dmitriz> robert: yeah, being able to query capabilities of, say, avatar providers, will be useufl
17:47:44 <dmitriz> dmitriz: yeah, this is also a pain point / interest topic in the fediverse in general
17:48:18 <dmitriz> dmitriz: question about OMI group - are there regular calls?
17:48:26 <dmitriz> robert: yeah, Weds at 9am Pacific
17:48:34 <dmitriz> ... and there's a calendar link on the github repo
17:49:22 <dmitriz> https://github.com/grishka/Smithereen
17:49:26 <dmitriz> https://github.com/omigroup/OMI
17:49:37 <dmitriz> dmitriz: any other questions/topics?
17:49:51 <dmitriz> dmitriz: ok, thanks everyone! see you on other calls!
17:50:00 <bengo> https://github.com/omigroup/OMI/discussions/38
17:50:05 <Loqi> [grishka] Smithereen: Federated, ActivityPub-compatible social network server with friends, walls, and groups.
17:50:15 <Loqi> [omigroup] OMI: Sandbox for discussing OMi objectives. How to get involved: Join us in GitHub discussions, and on Discord. See an opportunity to improve OMi documentation? PR's welcome!
20:01:39 <xmpp-social> xmpp-social has joined #social
20:26:00 <Loqi_> Loqi_ has joined #social
20:33:02 <timbl> timbl has joined #social
20:44:42 <xmpp-social> xmpp-social has joined #social
22:01:38 <dmitriz> dmitriz has joined #social
23:44:55 <xmpp-social> xmpp-social has joined #social