I'd love to see a bridge from RSS to ActivityPub. I've asked people at various companies if they'd do this. I'm happy to help with the software but operating the service is something for a trusted company to do.#
I think this would go all the way to putting the "open" in open social web, because people who already know how to build RSS feeds would be able to quickly write apps that hook into AP networks. And of course it wouldn't have to be limited to RSS, it could build on Atom and RDF equally well. #
It think it's tragic that it's taking Ghost, for example, so long to get their service up fully, and it suggests that smaller devs don't stand a chance. I can't wake up one day and have an idea of something that would work well with Mastodon, for example, and have a prototype running the next day. #
If you think this is a good idea, post a link to this post somewhere developers live, and let's see if we can get a cooperative project up and running. #
And if you don't like RSS, Atom or RDF, invent an orthogonal format and we can work with that too. I know people have strong feelings about this stuff, not a problem. #
PS: I asked Tim Bray to comment, and he responded. Sounds good. We've known each other for decades, going back to the early days of XML. #
You know those obnoxious sites that pop up dialogs when they think you're about to leave, asking you to subscribe to their email newsletter? Well that won't do for Scripting News readers who are a discerning lot, very loyal, but that wouldn't last long if I did rude stuff like that. So here I am at the bottom of the page quietly encouraging you to sign up for the nightly email. It's got everything from the previous day on Scripting, plus the contents of the linkblog and who knows what else we'll get in there. People really love it. I wish I had done it sooner. And every email has an unsub link so if you want to get out, you can, easily -- no questions asked, and no follow-ups. Go ahead and do it, you won't be sorry! :-)