Why can't we have a unified API across the fediverse to use in mobile apps?

adonis@kbin.social to Fediverse@lemmy.world – 83 points –

Is there a reason why all the services, that use the ActivityPub protocol don't have a unified API?

None of the mastodon apps allow me to log in with a lemmy/kbin account.

Also none of the lemmy apps allow me to log in with a kbin account.

Even though kbin has both mastodon (microblogging) and lemmy (threads, communities) functionality.

Also, Pixelfed recently introduced "login with Mastodon", but all it really does is just create a new user on it's instance and copy over the mastodon followers and profile info.

Why can't we just have one account to rule them all?

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I'm not an expert, those who know more, please correct me.

Regarding logging-in with one account into another instance, I think that's not how it's intended to work. But I'm oot sure I understand what you're asking.

Regarding the unified client API, 2 days ago Manton Reece (Creator of Micro.blog) wrote a response to Dave Winer's open voicemail in where he says:

There is a lot of work to do, even outside of ActivityPub. As Dave mentions, we also need a common posting API. The most popular Mastodon client apps do not support either ActivityPub or Micropub. But a lot of progress can be made focusing on interoperability for the server-to-server part of the API. That should be the top priority with Threads set to join the fediverse.

logging in with one account into another instance

I'd imagine a OAuth/JWT-like workflow, where pixelfed.social can ask a kbin-API whether my user exists on kbin.social.

If it does, I should be able to post images on the pixelfed app that show my username as @adonis.

Edit: by @adonis, I mean adonis @ kbin.social

If it does, I should be able to post images on the pixelfed app that show my username as @adonis.

It cannot work as stated because there could be another @adonis accounts in other instances and the only way to prevent that would be to centralize all the signups which goes against the whole idea of decentralization. That's why the user must be @adonis1@kbin.whatever as it is shown now.

Regarding the OAuth/JWT, again... not an expert, but what I understand is that that kind of integration is much stronger than the current system. AFAIK, it could work as you say, but that would make things much more complex for the servers; you usually provide OAuth authentication for a few services, I don't know how well that scales with ... hundreds / thousands (?) of authentication provders. But, who knows, maybe in the future it's implemented in one way or another.

We should take into account that this technology is fairly new and people are still building on it.

Sorry but the autoformatting miscommunicated my statement... by @adonis I meant adonis @ kbin.social.

And the domain is always part of the actual userhandle. Hence, there can only be one.

Regarding OAuth/JWT, these aren't new concepts. They've been around for while, if not decades.

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