Christopher Allan Webber

Guile ActivityStreams project name

Christopher Allan Webber at

So, I've rewritten a lot of ActiviPy into the branch "asobj" of another project currently named activitystuff (currently on GitHub because that's where w3c socialwg stuff was happening, but I'll be moving it off soon, I don't actually see a benefit).

Let's face it, "activitystuff" is a terrible name. So I've been thinking of some better ones.

  • subsurface: "ActivityPub" is our spec, and soon it will be split into ActivityPub (client to server API) and ActivitySub (server to server / federation). I like the name "subsurface" because I was trying to think of something "meshy", but almost everything is taken. But "subsurface" is shorthand for subdivision surface, which is a way of taking a 3d mesh that looks very rough, but is easy to manage, and getting a much smoother mesh out of it... great for organic modeling. Plus it has "sub" in the name!
  • pubsurface: like subsurface, but with "pub" instead of "sub". Makes it probably more confusing, but also by swapping the terms, says "pub" but implies the former "sub"
  • substrate: well, substrate also has "sub" in it, and there are a lot of fun definitions of substrate. In particular, I like the mesh like patterns for "substrates" that are used in 3d printing, but the biological definition is also good. Take your pick of definitions! Anyway, maybe sounds cooler than "subsurface", I dunno.
  • pubstrate: again, switching for "pub" to imply both "pub" and "sub", same as "pubsurface"

What do people think? After typing this out, I think either subsurface, substrate, or pubstrate. Thoughts?

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Does ActiviPy do c-to-s or s-to-s? If client-to-server, I can see pubstrate. If server-to-server, definitely subsurface or substrate. Pubsurface is a definite forget it.

lnxwalt@microca.st at 2016-07-30T17:13:50Z

Oh, just now saw your comment.

lnxwalt@microca.st at 2016-07-30T17:15:36Z

@cwebber@identi.ca I wouldn't use subsurface because that's a fairly well known project started by Linus Torvalds.

Ben Pfaff at 2016-07-30T17:59:37Z

Christopher Allan Webber likes this.

So yeah, I've gone with pubstrate.

@lnxwalt@microca.st To answer your questions, right now it mostly handles ActivityStreams vocabulary stuff itself, but very shortly I hope it supports (at least in minimal form) the stuff necessary for ActivityPub and ActivitySub both. So maybe by switching the name "Sub" to "Pub" in an obvious way in the name, both will be kept in mind!

Christopher Allan Webber at 2016-07-30T18:01:30Z

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