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2025-05-21 22:52:15

j12t@j12t.social

Does anybody know how the term "ActivityPub" was coined? Why that particular name?

(It's not an obvious one for a decentralized social media protocol.)

#ActivityPub

2025-05-21 23:10:54

@reiver ⊼ (Charles) :batman:

reiver@mastodon.social

@j12t

I recall that someone mentioned before that "ActivityPub" was a renaming of "ActivityPump".

And, I would assume that the "pump" in "ActivityPump" is from pump.io

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump.io

But, I never tried verifying any of that.

.

2025-05-22 00:34:24

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Johannes Ernst Paging @Evan Prodromou and the ActivityPub inventress, @Christine Lemmer-Webber.

#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #ActivityPub

2025-05-22 00:52:45

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Johannes Ernst Since you weren't mentioned in these replies, you probably weren't notified about them either. So, fresh from your thread:

Evan Prodromou schrieb den folgenden Beitrag Thu, 22 May 2025 00:38:22 +0200

@jupiter_rowland

https://cosocial.ca/@evan/114548184600389826

Christine Lemmer-Webber schrieb den folgenden Beitrag Thu, 22 May 2025 00:38:35 +0200

@jupiter_rowland Well I don't think I'm the ActivityPub inventress, though I certainly played a big role in its standardization and etc. The history of the name "ActivityPub" is one of those things that could be lost to time tho, so here's what happened, per my memory: 🧵

Christine Lemmer-Webber schrieb den folgenden Beitrag Thu, 22 May 2025 00:40:45 +0200

- @evan developed Pump.io's API experimenting towards a new, simpler, better design to replace OStatus called the "Pump.io API" https://github.com/e14n/pump.io/blob/master/API.md
- @erincandescent sets up "ActivityPump" doc, converting Evan's api docs into more formal protocol format/language, using ActivityStreams2
- In the SocialWG, MicroPub was also being standardized; there was hope the two specs would converge, and @rhiaro suggested we rename to ActivityPub, a big name upgrade anyway

Christine Lemmer-Webber schrieb den folgenden Beitrag Thu, 22 May 2025 00:42:37 +0200

Ultimately the merge between MicroPub and ActivityPub didn't happen, but they did learn from each other, and ActivityPub did keep its improved name. The "Pump" language was awkward; Pump.io had an infamously awkward (but I don't think intentional) tagline along the lines of "Pump.io pumps your life through your family and friends" or something else that made me think yes, actually dropping the name "pump" might be a good idea, and ActivityPub seemed good

Christine Lemmer-Webber schrieb den folgenden Beitrag Thu, 22 May 2025 00:44:36 +0200

I'm not much of the ActivityPub inventress; I did shape it a lot, and guided it through the process. Ultimately, ActivityPub's core design ideas came from @evan, though really I think they really derive from the kind of design that comes out of actor model systems (even though AP deviates in various places from the actor model, it's best when it follows it)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #ActivityPub #QuotePost #QuoteTweet #QuoteToot #QuoteBoost

2025-05-22 05:19:51

Sebastian Lasse

sl007@digitalcourage.social

@j12t

the "Pub"/"Sub" [publish/subscribe] was a common decision to have a CI for multiple W3C protocols.
They all got their .rocks page like
https://micropub.rocks/
https://websub.rocks/
https://activitypub.rocks/

The first part should give a hint to the scope like micro (= minimal nice dogfooding) or activity (= Actor/Activity model).

2025-05-22 22:05:38

Liam

liachra@infosec.exchange

@j12t

It's not a term, it's a protocol. Wikipedia should have some answers when it was initially released.
#ActivityPub