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this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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I feel like people are missing the question that is really being asked here.
The way I read the question is "How are the individual federated servers able to interact?"
I mean, there has to be some sort of system somewhere that helps the servers connect to each other. How does Lemmy.ca know that Lemmy.world exists? There must be some sort of authority that knows. There must be some sort of first step when a new instance appears that lets everyone know that the new server exists.
Unless it's like routers and routing tables but that only works because of the physical structure allowing it, a federated server isn't going to reach out to its nearest neighbor and see another federated server. When you start a new server, do you have to like... pick an existing federated server to... like... knock on the door of? Give them a pie and tell them that you're in the neighborhood now?
I don't know the answer to this question... But I like the pie idea.
Think of it like email vs a website. Microsoft.com isn't connected to Yahoo.com, but they store email originating from both places. The difference here is those emails are email lists (posts and comments from subscribed communities) and get sent automatically once they learn each other exist (because a user asked to get an email).