Which is the better protocol overall based on the current information?
As far as I know AT isn’t actually being used anywhere at the moment. Bluesky has a single server with closed registration and no federation partners. Despite being open source, AT isn’t really intended to be an open protocol.
ActivityPub, on the other hand, has a few hundred servers including several dozen large ones all federating nicely together.
What do you mean it’s not intended to be an open protocol? There is no other reason for it to exist
Bluesky’s protocol implementation is open source but the protocol isn’t defined by any standard. Once its open and federating, if that ever happens, anyone who wants to connect will be entirely beholden to the latest published version from bluesky and whatever protocol documentation they provide. They’re starting in the middle of the EEE playbook, anyone who wants to join in has to chase them.
There isn’t a standard because the protocol/platform doesn’t exist yet. “Anyone who wants to connect will be entirely beholden to get the latest published version from Bluesky” is just the definition of a standard. Every standard is maintained by someone. And its also not EEE to make an entirely new system. They are neither embracing nor extending activitypub. They are trying something of their own.
I don’t know but I’m interested in the discussion. It never really matters which standard is better but simply which is more widespread.
Currently, AT protocol is mostly theoretical because it’s newer and a lot of things haven’t been implemented yet . ActivityPub is much more widespread, but some of the ideas for AT protocol would be great in ActivityPub, like better account portability.
