Pretty cool #godotengine tools in here, including @rpginabox !
@j15r I'm wondering if we reimplemented it as like a WASM server you could run in the browser or in a cloud host, it could be cheap enough to spinup on demand.
I'm thinking if the lowest level protocol needed for pulling feeds could be some tiny WASM impl, it might be really cheap to host as a microservice. Or maybe I'm overthinking it as JS would be enough, but imagine it running on a Raspberry PI and you could sell consumer Mastrodon servers you plug into your wifi network.
@cromwellian I'm not deeply familiar with the Mastodon federation model, but I have the general impression that individual servers still need to be online and persistent. I think?
@j15r Yeah, it's based on ActivityStreams/WebFinger I think. Which basically is HTTP pull. Some cloud providers offer a microservices model where you host a tiny image or even a single JS function. They mostly are dormant/asleep and spun up on demand when the URL is accessed.
I'm thinking this could be used for the federation hosting. Your client in the browser could treat it like your own personal IMAP/SMTP server and periodically sync.
Or, using an always-online model, you could put a server in like a puck on your LAN (e.g. a raspberry pi).
I kind of like the SMTP/IMAP client/server model because it's proven. But so was UUCP/NNTP, so maybe that model would work too.
@cromwellian So far it seems to be working ok. Definitely some perf & ux kinks to iron out, but off to a good start. I actually did start running my own out of curiosity, but just using masto.host, because I sure as hell don't have time to setup and manage an instance myself!