The Linked Data discussion keeps us occupied. On chat a discussion about focusing on biggest pain points. Triggered by @hrefna musing about Linked Data.
My reaction this morning with a bit of ranty frustration, on what I see as biggest pain point:
Technology adoption lifecycle of AS/AP is nearly stuck.
Besides coordinating / collab in grassroots movement, the prominent role of LD is stifling, imho. On chat I called it “Pita delivery”:
To me the biggest pain point is that today there’s no real interop facilitated by the standards, other than “I copy a bit of what you do, add a bit I found elsewere, and sprinkle some own fairy dust on top”. Hampering evolution and limiting potential, while tech debt accrues. I called it the “Fixing the broken technology adoption lifecycle” challenge in my notes.
Fediverse is becoming popular, right? But how much of that is due to an app, Mastodon, “crossing the chasm”, rather than ActivityPub?
The original dream/promise of LD was to make life easier connecting all the things together. Define your own data/information/type model in human-readable format. “Don’t worry the machines can read it too, and it will all fit into one big interwoven tapestry on which we dance and celebrate mankind.” It didn’t turn out that way and 24 years later we see some uptake in academic circles and new AI fields, while people are still working on complex standards to meet the original promise.
As I mentioned before I still like the ideas of LD, would love to see us go to the moon with it and venture into the galaxy. But as the primary extension mechanism for this particular AP protocol it may not be the best choice. LD support? Perfect. AP on LD life support? Umm… not a fan.
Linked Data is the footgun of AS/AP…
Update:
As I said before I deliberately chose to volunteer most my time on the community and advocacy side of the Fediverse. To me it is the future potential where things get really interesting. And in that future the decentralized protocol and technology ecosystem needs to be easily accessible to a broad range of people. Not a small elite group of experts who have managed to eat through all the complexity with grit and pure dedication and came out victorious.
In that approach I am seriously considering taking a step back from this focus on AS/AP. After all the protocol should be just an implementation detail in a delightfully decentralized interwoven social networking environment. My vision is a Peopleverse (social) on top of a Fediverse (technical), and hence considering the “Social Web” in its entirety may make more sense to me.