How Decentralized Is Bluesky Really?

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

Klepmann is I feel aiming for internet-scale open standards adoption. With DAT, Solid, AS/AP, many other approaches, I see apps with app-specific ecosystems.

They are nowhere near the ambition level. Unsafe bets for technology decision makers (also FOSS ones).

I interacted with DAT for a bit years ago, giving feedback on lack of attention to non-technical matters and how I felt this put the project at extreme risk, with little chance for success. Same with Solid, AS/AP.

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@smallcircles @cwebber

yeah.
affiliation.
viral marketing.
we need to do that p2p too.

sadly too littpe knowledge and attention seem to be channeled into that yet and i hope this changes in the future.

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@smallcircles @cwebber

might be that something can be learned here when looking at bitcoin

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@smallcircles @cwebber

@dat_ecosystem

The pear runtime is documented at https://docs.pears.com

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@smallcircles @cwebber

i'd prefer to burn down all those temples. fuck them tbh. we need to make it work grassroots.

the most recent impactful movement that was successfully torpedoed by microsoft was nodejs and npm growth.

the reason they were successful was money.

The nodejs ecosystem grew up and figured its not sustainable for them.

Every used open source repo must be part of supply chains automatically and receive funds to make it sustainable. Without, any movement will fail again imho

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@smallcircles @cwebber

theblast word hasnt been spoken.
dat still survives and everyone learns.

it is easy to make a standard body or to create a foundation for funding or marketing.

The centralized answers are well known, but they have the inherent risk of degenerating the novel solution back to the status quo they tried to escape from.

Finding new decentralized answers on the organizational layer of the stack as well is a lot of work - not just research into the unknown, but implementing

bhaugen

@serapath @smallcircles @cwebber
> Every used open source repo must be part of supply chains automatically and receive funds to make it sustainable.

Agreed. Better yet, or maybe this is part of what you meant, create the repo as part of an economic network that also provides for its own material and other needs.

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@bhaugen @smallcircles @cwebber

I agree here as well.
Of course - i wanted to leave open how one might tackle the issue, but I do think that direction is the right direction.

The issue is probalby by starting it in this way, a lot more opinions are baked in, thus - what is the least opinionated way of approaching this?

That is a tough one

bhaugen

@serapath @smallcircles @cwebber

I can think of two ways to approach software that wants to be part of, and supported by, an economic network:
1. find an economic network and create some software that the network will like and use,
or,
2. create an economic network at (roughly) the same time as creating the software.

We're trying both approaches and we'll see which (or both) works for us.

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@bhaugen @smallcircles @cwebber

Of course, but what are all the modalities you might opt into. How exactly does the support look like?

That's more what i meant - of course, the choices (1.) and (2.) you mention seem obvious. If (1.) exists and you like it, join it. If not, you can only choose (2.) or waiting longer for somebody else to choose (2.)

Every such network was at some point started using option (2.) ...but what modalities would you choose when setting it up? what are the options?

bhaugen

@serapath
> Every such network was at some point started using option (2.) ...but what modalities would you choose when setting it up? what are the options?

Don't know yet. With luck, I may find out.

@smallcircles @cwebber

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@serapath @cwebber

What I find interesting is the analogy to Big Industry.

How is it that big industry can run the most intricate global just-in-time supply lines between ultra-complex factory complexes and their suppliers, and is able to profitably produce consistent output to consumers en masse.

And a collab between 2 foss projects, totaling 4 people, is most likely to end in a catfight drama playing out online. And maybe, if lucky, forks.

How are we supposed to topple hypercapitalism?

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@bhaugen @serapath @cwebber

This discussion is very interesting. Unfortunately it is lost in fleety, threadrotting in fedi timeline history tomorrow.

To the general vision, I'd say let's make it happen.. gradually and sustainably

I have ideas..

Proposal: Start a fellowship to explore the Social Web

:rainbow: " Let’s Reimagine Social " :first_quarter_moon_with_face: Background: “Protocol laboratory” The initiative started by @helge to gather feedback in Wiki: Vision for a Fedi Specification and evaluate feasib…

Discuss Social Coding (discuss.coding.social)

And there is action already:

Wiki: Vision for a Fedi Specification

Social Web Protocol Considerations Wiki Post. Please Participate! First read the Introduction by @helge. Status → :brain: Brainstorming. Gathering feedback. Contents :muscle: Co-creation log …

Discuss Social Coding (discuss.coding.social)

Hop on, and join the fun, you are invited.

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@serapath @cwebber

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@smallcircles @cwebber

It's not entirely true though.
Open source is everywhere and won already and it started with linux

How is it possible that linux as the biggest and most popular example is so stable and contains so many packages and contributors and maintainers?

How is it possible that the entire web runs on bundled npm packages and the deep node_modules folders behind that are again having so many contributors and maintainers?

Its obviously possible and happening, but no compensation

teledyn 𓂀

@bhaugen @smallcircles @serapath @cwebber

A third choice has ample precedent:

3. find several competing economic networks working on the same solution, convince them to cooperate, pool resources and share the burden. This was the motivation and support for X-Window, the backers backed BECAUSE they didn't trust each other!

Consider for example, municipal public Works tracking. No one community would have the resources, but together, internationally, all it needs is coordination

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@serapath @cwebber

Open source is everywhere and won. Agreed. FOSS ate the world.

Open source maintainers however. Esp. the free software types.. poor folks. That includes me too, sadly.

If people earning decent sustainable income is a criterium, then FOSS has failed and is inherently unsustainable. Even more so because mosts the fruits of its near-slave labour (not talking hobbyists) are harvested by fat smiling corporate farmers, plucked, low-hanging fruit.

Protected by a license sticker.

amd

@evan I’d be curious to hear more about your thoughts here.

I have worked in extremely patent laden spaces and I have never shied away from reading them as ignorance doesn’t offer a defense (in the US at least). I would read everything I could with the intention to be aware of the shape of the field and force my inventions to be developed to avoid them.

Is there something different about your space that allows you to be willfully unaware and somehow insulates your work?

@cwebber @bnewbold

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@teledyn @bhaugen @smallcircles @cwebber

i think this is a grwat suggestion.

But the way you describe it sounds like:

1. networking, politics ans bureaucracy, so not the path of least resitance open to the masses.
2. wouldnt work for a codec or parser or sort algorithm or any of the myriads of little open source modules individuals couplld create

I do believe (3.) as you say IS the answer, but absolutely not in its current form. This has to become as easy as a pull request and merge

Evan Prodromou

@amd @cwebber @bnewbold I don't know.

I wish that Bluesky would publish an open, royalty-free patent license on AT so this wasn't a problem for anyone else in the space.

In the open standards world, we typically only consider work from other open standards, specifically for this reason. So, basing a W3C spec on an IETF RFC.

So my experience here is slim.