 Re: @dansup on another thread: > I think the reason most core devs don't engage in the socialhub forum is because we communicate more directly (dms, discord, etc) as conversations typically move fast I can well understand this, esp. since #SocialHub is not efficient in pushing #ActivityPub et al. But a "move fast and do not share things" approach means missing out on a win-win and hampers/slows #Fediverse evolution. An improved standards process + active project participation is much needed. 26 comments
A federated protocol where everyone creates ad-hoc extensions for their own projects means we'll soon have a spaghetti-code #Fediverse that no one fully understands and gets harder and harder to interoperate with and less attractive to build new apps for. The tech debt is already very large, and most documentation is lacking. The "Tragedy of the Commons" of fedi is that it is not a project in and of itself, so nobody maintains it, only uses it as a dependency in their own project. @humanetech @dansup @cj If only open source projects could become a community effort and not just a never ending toy developers just abandon at will multiple times. Like, I'd love to see Activity Pub become a very solidly maintained protocol that's built on. Take RSS, for example. But the internet at large is trying to kill RSS, so... how did email become so maintained?  @blindscribe EMail only exists because there is literally nothing else to communicate without beeing forces to use someones platform. * https://matrix.org/blog/2021/07/21/germanys-national-healthcare-system-adopts-matrix @grishka sure, and can't blame you in the slightest. It does not really matter how the process is set up, and if things are documented before or after the fact. You participate in discussions, and FEP process, which is more than many others do. Also the fedi specs work best if ones use cases are already well represented, and just need some tweaks and extension here and there. But if widespread, rich interop is where your app starts off and thrives, its a much more risky bet to 'just start'.  @humanetech @dansup There are more precedents of #slowTech, the internet took from 1970 to 1990 to develop, with the unwritten rule of raw consensus and working code. They used RFCs to write evolving standards. But these were mostly academics who were allowed to spend some of their time on creating the internet. There are examples where fundraising helps (temporarily), e.g. Mobilizon. A more formal organization is asking for tragedy. > A more formal organization is asking for tragedy Yea, it is a bit of a conundrum here. A spaghetti-code fediverse is also doomed to become a tragedy, or maybe in slowtech terms it will continue to exist like bulletin boards and usenet. But it will be missed opportunity because there's potential to offer so much more. Truly social humane tech that serves people, fosters collaboration, and offering a refreshing alternative. Growth in numbers is unimportant, but grow in quality. @humanetech @dansup Evolution is basically a process of trial and error. If you want to help it, please have a look how that has been done before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel @humanetech @dansup What he did was write up a lot of RFCs in order to avoid widespread confusion.. Well, if we did that for the #Fediverse it would be a great step forwards. We have a Fediverse Enhancement Proposals (FEP) process, but after bootstrapping it, it immediately stalled. https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fep-a4ed-the-fediverse-enhancement-proposal-process/1171 @humanetech @dansup So you could help not to make the process go from informal to formal, but from high entropy to low entropy. Well, I am not advocating to make the process more formal. Better defined, maybe, easier accessible. But to have a more formal organization core as a foundation below the SocialHub community, on which it stands. Maybe being able to collect funding and deal it out via bounties in a democratic community-involved process, idk. There's a ton of work and all dull chores. Volunteering like now, trying to herd cats, is a recipe for burnout and in fact happened to many others already. @humanetech @gert @dansup If FEP really failed, then let's do another one based on a proven process like RFC or even BIP. I have proposed on SocialHub to transfer it to https://codeberg.org/fediverse but there was no follow-up to that. @humanetech @gert @dansup Well if you know anyone who can get an access code, please do. I'll definitely make it part of my daily or at least weekly rounds. It was in this post in April: https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/social-cg-issue-trackers/1648/2 I also proposed some changes to the FEP process. Both @cj and @pukkamustard did a ton of work in setting things up, and its their call if they feel positive for a move to codeberg. @humanetech @gert @dansup @cj @pukkamustard That's amazing. I found this stuff about federation.md in many projects which is very interesting. Are all of those listed somewhere along with things like the FEPs and AP spec? @weex @gert @dansup @cj @pukkamustard Some time ago I edited all the FEDERATION.md I could find in: https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/guide-for-new-activitypub-implementers/479 @weex A small list of things that needs FEPs: https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/come-help-list-of-feps-needed/1097 @weex There was also an idea to host the FEPs at https://library.activitypub.dev/ but I never updated the library's code. @humanetech I am fine with a move to codeberg. I think most of the FEP things are documented in the git repository, not in the issues specific to git.activitypub.dev. It would be good to get explicit opinion from @pukkamustard and @lain as well though. @humanetech @gert @dansup Just tried again and I was able to login... FEPs are alive again! |
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A problem is that this process hardly exists and no one really reserves the time to make it work.
There's a sort of chicken egg problem in improving the situation.
With no efficient process devs don't find it worthwhile to participate, and no one is available to improve things.
Maybe monetary incentives, salary, bounties for doing community work is needed to stimulate people to help do all the work - and there is a lot to be done - should be considered.
A more formal organization..