> However, I disagree with some of the analysis, and have a couple specific points to correct.

[cwebber@social.coop]

My friend @n8fr8 of the Guardian Project likes to point at Signal's budget and say "yeah that looks big, but you know how much the government spends on each fighter jet?" and it's some unimaginably large number, like *hundreds* of millions of dollars per jet

Signal is the cost of a jet wing

[cwebber@social.coop]

Anyway we should give Signal the jet wing money

Can someone get @spritely some of the jet wing money?

Anyway you'd think if you were upset about the government "taking your tax money" you'd at least want to get something out of it and FOSS helps everyone so this is so frustrating

[cwebber@social.coop]

So that's all to say that I think the choice of these orgs is pretty interesting because when you say "oh a bunch of FOSS nonprofits host community infrastructure" we're not talking social.coop costs with a bunch of these we're talking jet wing money

It's really hard to get that jet wing money

[cwebber@social.coop]

Anyway I'll stop talking about the jet wing money I promise

jet wing money jet wing money jet wing money

Please give FOSS nonprofits jet wing money

But anyway THE POINT IS what kinda scale are we thinking about? What's your frame of reference? Fediverse co-op? Or Signal?

[cwebber@social.coop]

But speaking of running FOSS nonprofits I now have an EXCITING MEETING about administrative duties of running my FOSS nonprofit

So, it is time for a... MEETING BREAK (like, an hour)

Followed by a tea break. (like, 10 minutes)

==== MEETING AND TEA BREAK HERE ====

[cwebber@social.coop]

Okay, I'm back from my meeting. I also have tea.

We're about to get to the first REALLY substantial part, which is terminology. Is it fair to call Bluesky "decentralized" or "federated"?

Both @bnewbold and I provided definitions and we are going to COMPARE and ANALYZE

[cwebber@social.coop]

Before we go any further I am just gonna say, I miss hiding the easter eggs, but I don't think I can do that again

If you know anything about my projects you know that I love goblins. Have for a long time. When we launched MediaGoblin I would get people saying "nobody will ever like goblins"

WELL

[cwebber@social.coop]

Now we live in an era of "Goblincore" and people self-describing as Goblins

I am pleased. And I am pleased to be into Goblins before they were cool.

The Goblin theme continues at Spritely as you may know

But if you've read this far, let me know that you found Secret Goblin #1

[cwebber@social.coop]

So, is Bluesky decentralized? Is it federated?

In my previous blogpost, I concluded that Bluesky was not either.

@bnewbold conceded that maybe Bluesky does not meet *my* definitions, but provides some alternative definitions, which maybe it does meet

Were my definitions too strong or unfair?

[cwebber@social.coop]

@bnewbold declares he will "choose his own fighter" and selects Mark Nottingham's independent IETF submission, RFC 9518: Centralization, Decentralization, and Internet Standards
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc9518/

It's an interesting document, and it turns out, has some interesting context

[cwebber@social.coop]

Bryan cites Mark's definition of *centralization* (which I hadn't defined!):

> [...] "centralization" is the state of affairs where a single entity or a small group of them can observe, capture, control, or extract rent from the operation or use of an Internet function exclusively.

Good so far!

[cwebber@social.coop]

However it's time to compare definitions of *decentralization*. First mine:

> Decentralization is the result of a system that diffuses power throughout its structure, so that no node holds particular power at the center.

I stand by this!

[cwebber@social.coop]

Now here is Bryan's definition (more accurately Mark Nottingham's definition (more accurately, Paul Baran's definition)) of decentralization:

> [Decentralization is when] "complete reliance upon a single point is not always required" (citing Baran, 1964)

Uh, hm... this seems... pretty weak?!

[cwebber@social.coop]

This definition of decentralization is so weak it may as well say "Users occasionally not rely on a central gatekeeper, as a treat"

It's pretty weak, and yeah Bluesky qualifies, but that's... I'm gonna be honest that's an *incredibly* weak definition by comparison

[cwebber@social.coop]

Let's look at the delta between my definition of decentralization and the one chosen by Bryan:
- The discussion of power dynamics, and diffusion thereof, is removed
- The "phrase complete" reliance is introduced, so incomplete reliance is now ok
- And not only that, now it's "not always required!"

[cwebber@social.coop]

In my previous blogpost I had expressed worry about moving the goalposts of "decentralization". That is *exactly* what's happening here, and what's being said is "if we weaken the definition dramatically, then Bluesky qualifies"

This is, IMO, not a very compelling look I've gotta say

[cwebber@social.coop]

Now you might notice this citation [Baran, 1964] and hey if you work on network things you might be thinking "Hey Christine, wait isn't this one of the seminal papers on networking which led to the internet?"

GOOD QUESTION LET'S COME BACK TO THAT

The context is CRITICAL.

Back to that in a moment.

[cwebber@social.coop]

Okay so "decentralization", maybe Bluesky qualifies if we use an unimaginably weaksauce definition that's so loose you don't even have to comply with it hardly at all?

So okay now let's compare definitions of "federation".

[cwebber@social.coop]

My definition:

> [Federation] is a technical approach to communication architecture which achieves decentralization by many independent nodes cooperating and communicating to be a unified whole, with no node holding more power than the responsibility or communication of its parts.

[cwebber@social.coop]

Bryan's definition (more accurately Mark Nottingham's definition):

> [...] federation, i.e., designing a function in a way that uses independent instances that maintain connectivity and interoperability to provide a single cohesive service.

Hm okay, well these don't look quite as far apart, right?