Added blog post

content/_index.md

@@ -9,7 +9,8 @@ layout: front
 This wants to become the website for the FediTest project, which builds a test suite for
 the Fediverse.
 
-**Pardon our early work in progress.**
+**Pardon our early work in progress.** There will be blog posts before we have much content
+for the rest of the site.
 
 <div style="height: 10em"></div>
 

content/blog/2024-02-06-what-is-a-test-suite-for-the-fediverse.md

@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+---
+title: 'What do we mean when we say "Fediverse Test Suite"?'
+date: 2024-02-05
+author: Johannes Ernst
+authorurl: https://j12t.org/
+---
+
+Let's start with the term [Test Suite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_suite).
+This is what Wikipedia has to say about it:
+
+> In software development, a test suite, ... is a collection of test cases that
+> are intended to be used to test a software program to show that it has some
+> specified set of behaviors.
+
+About [Test Case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_case), it says:
+
+> ... a test case is a specification of the inputs,
+> execution conditions, testing procedure, and expected results that define a
+> single test to be executed to achieve a particular software testing objective,
+> such as to exercise a particular program path or to verify compliance with a
+> specific requirement.
+
+and
+
+> Test cases underlie testing that is methodical rather than haphazard.
+
+This latter sentence is really important. One of our goals is to make it possible
+for a range of parties (more about that later) to methodically test the Fediverse,
+which would be a significant advance over the state of the art.
+
+The Fediverse, for our purposes here, is as a global network of communicating "Fediverse
+instances", i.e. running software applications, implemented and operated by a variety of
+parties. These instances interact with each other on a voluntary basis, based on set of
+agreed-upon protocols and conventions.
+
+Today's Fediverse is centered around the
+[ActivityStreams Core](https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-core/),
+[ActivityStreams Vocabulary](https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-vocabulary/) and
+[ActivityPub](https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/) standards
+as published by the [World-Wide-Web Consortium](https://www.w3.org/). However, today's
+Fediverse would not be functional with only agreement on those W3C standards.
+For example, the use of the IETF's
+[RFC7033: WebFinger](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7033) standard is also required,
+and a fairly significant number of conventions that are not standardized and sometimes
+only partially codified, such as:
+
+* The use of HTTP Signatures in a now-obsolete draft, as pioneered by Mastodon.
+
+* Various [Fediverse Enhancement Proposals](https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep).
+
+* The use the "Note" object in preference to many other defined object types which are
+  not broadly understood by participating software.
+* Conventions for using only a subset of the power of JSON-LD.
+
+... and more.
+
+So our scope here is not merely ActivityPub, but the set of all protocols and conventions
+that are used to make today's Fediverse work. Of course, the Fediverse is not a static
+construct. Developers build new cool features all the time, which often require, or
+suggest extensions or improvements to some of the protocols and conventions currently
+in use. The Fediverse Test Suite is intended to be flexible in growing
+with the Fediverse, in whatever direction it develops. Specifically, it should be easy
+for developers to extend the test suite to support the testing of additional protocols
+and conventions.
+