This series of articles and replies has really made me think about the structure of the Fediverse (as a casual user, though in the software biz), and for that I am very thankful. It makes me think, though, that just as open source developers got around the “free as in speech vs. free as in beer” issue by using the word libre, if the Fediverse needs another term – or even just call it “capital-F federation” – to distinguish the kind of first-class federation that Christine and ActivityPub represent vs. the definition that ATProto has suggested (and even vs what lots of regular software/service companies mean when they describe a system of microservices as federated).

There is one aspect of this I feel mixed about: I don’t want folks to trust Bluesky, or believe in atproto, just because of the people on the team. Or because of our track record to date. Teams and individuals change over time, and we mean it seriously when we say “the company is a future adversary”. The bar we are shooting for is to convince people that atproto is legitimate and useful even if Bluesky and the team adopt the worst of intentions. We have a lot of work to earn that kind of trust in the protocol, but it will be all the more meaningful if the goalposts don’t move.

At least they acknowledge that.