Graze Social and the IETF

When I floated the idea of Graze sponsoring my attendance at the IETF Montreal conference last November, Devin was an immediate yes. It made sense for us to show our support in person, since that fits with Graze’s commitment to staying involved in protocol development and helping the ecosystem grow.

I also want to thank Bluesky Social for contributing to travel expenses. It was very generous, and I’m appreciative of the support.

Being There

This was my first time attending an IETF meeting in person. I enjoyed hanging out with Boris, Chad, Fig, Daniel, Bryan, Eli, and people from Germ, Cosmik Network, and Leaflet. We had a good group, and watching the World Series at the Airbnb with Boris, Ronin, and Was was a highlight.

Before the conference started, the Montreal welcoming committee got things going. We discussed a lot of ideas about community services, including how to handle aggregate identities and the records they share. It was several days of good, friendly, and focused conversation on the ATProtocol ecosystem.

I especially enjoyed the hack-day before the conference. It was really inspiring to see different groups share what they had worked on and be part of it. There’s a real sense of purpose, and you’re surrounded by people who care enough to be there, which keeps things productive.

The Connection to Graze

Bryan and Daniel had been working for some time to get an ATProtocol spec into the IETF. There’s been plenty of debate about what should go into the spec. The semi-formal feed generation process wasn’t directly included, but many parts of identity, feed processing and generation were. At Graze, our daily work involved those areas.

It was valuable to have a direct link between the standards discussions and the systems we were running. You see a spec in a new way when you’re the one building it and dealing with the tricky parts.

Why It Matters

Being involved in setting standards is important, especially as a way to keep things balanced. I strongly believe we need people with different opinions, backgrounds, and goals in the mix. If only a few big companies are involved, we lose our chance to shape the ecosystem.

Small companies and independent developers offer a different point of view. They face unique problems, have their own limits, and ask questions others might not. If those voices aren’t included, the spec ends up serving only the biggest organizations.