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Comment by xrisk | Hacker News Reader

What reason does Bluesky give for not opening up their AppView code?

Another notable component that is closed source is the discovery feed generator, where at least there is some reason.

I asked this and got

> We did a backend rewrite from postgres to scylla and it has a bunch of deployment specific stuff, but is functionally identical to the open source postgres version. Its not really a "v2" in terms of new features, we just made it make use of our hardware really well[1]

[1]: https://bsky.app/profile/iame.li/post/3l7e3jfqit22s

Thanks, so are both the Postgres and Scylla versions maintained in terms of new features?

I wasn't aware that AppView v1 was open source, and the most recent info I'm aware of on the topic is https://alice.bsky.sh/post/3laega7icmi2q, https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/discussions/2961 and https://docs.bsky.app/docs/advanced-guides/federation-archit..., and everything I've heard about Bluesky was that open source appview is "still coming".

It's not coming, it never went away… As I understand it, the "business layer" with all the logic is above the data later, shared by the Postgres and Scylla versions, and the data layer just makes queries to the database. I think they are using the Postgres version locally for development.

The App View frontend is open source: https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app

Much of the backend is open source as well: https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/tree/main/packages

What is not are the extra services they run to provide a better and faster UX. Even if it was open source, it likely costs 10s of thousands to run per month (they have moved largely to "onprem" hardware instead of the cloud aiui)

That's the frontend code, it doesn't include the backend API services, which are closed source.

the backend (the AppView) can be found here:

https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/tree/main/packages...

there are various supporting services written in Go as well

https://github.com/bluesky-social/indigo

Which is what I said in the second sentence

AppView is a specific term of art within the Bluesky federation architecture: https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view, you were incorrect in identifying the public frontend repo as the AppView.

A frontend is (can be) part of an App View. It is quite literally the app you view the network through. There can also be headless app views and app views which have no backend

this is not correct

The glossary specifically calls out the UI as part of an app view. Can you explain why it is not according to you?

that's not the appview, that's the client

App View is a bit fuzzy of a term. To me it seems like a combination of frontend, backend, custom lexicon, and supporting services. There isn't really another place in the spec or design where clients or browsers fit in, which do in fact provide a view of the network via an app.

"UI" is part of the definition they give in the glossary

https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view

when I read the spec it seemed like the operator of an AppView & Relay would be most in need of compensation for their hosting costs due to the amount of demand on those components so I believe the spec allows an operator to implement their own AppView & monetize it as that operator sees fit, so that they can afford to operate the service and maybe even make money off of it so that they can make it their full time jobs.

It seems this way to me as well. ATProto fundamentally changes how monetization works in social media by removing lockin. It's going to be interesting to see what emerges from this design decision.

Another interesting way to view ATProto is that it could be a collection of headless features and network browsers that leverage those feature providers.

what else? profit by means of doing work that benefits first and foremost the private proprietors of the closed source

if they gave it away (which used to be unfeasible until the digital era) they feel they’re loosing their valuable effort which they’re wont on concentrating, not diluting.

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