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@smallcircles I've finally read it, and given how many new concepts, I have only a thinnish grasp of the detail, but the core is very clear and as a 'problem with flat governance' could apply to many other spheres…

Two immediate responses, apologies if long discussed by other means:

- if the challenge of knowing what Fediverse Apps implement which bit of the spec is a blocker, is there a standard way to declare which bits of the spec an app is conformant in? Json / yaml / xml / etc list of specific Activity Pub spec capabilities implemented or diverged from? Presumably once agreed these could be created by anyone and PRd to existing apps (or is that what federation.md is?)

- does the Fediverse need a democratic membership org that funds core maintenance of FEP and pays for some of the core community maintainers to keep looking after the ecosystem / garden (and putting in the time to keep having discussions with different actors). Obvs that's no small ask; my Q: is it the right ask?

just small circles 🕊

@smallcircles@social.coop replied · 19 hours ago

@nicol

> if the challenge of knowing what Fediverse Apps implement which bit of the spec is a blocker, is there a standard way to declare which bits of the spec an app is conformant in?

The #ActivityPub #FEP process keeps a list of implementations, in each of its documents. The FEDERATION.md was once introduced as "something to start with before going more complex wrt introspection", a temporary bandaid to bring improvement. Its adoption and use, and later its description as a recommended practice are going very slow though. Still, a very useful practice, compared to lacking such doc and perusing foreign codebases for the info.

> does the Fediverse need a democratic membership org that funds core maintenance of FEP and pays for some of the core community maintainers to keep looking after the ecosystem.

That might be a good solution. For part of a much bigger problem. No #funding bakes bread yet.

I addressed this with @nlnet in the past, and intend to bring it up again next week.

just small circles 🕊

@smallcircles@social.coop replied · 19 hours ago

@nicol @nlnet

It is the right ask though. The ask is: What are ALL the moving gears that make sustainable #FOSS (i.e. #SOSS) be produced, and in an entire healthy technology ecosystem at that.

My investigation around commons based social dynamics started when I had basically given up "trying to herd cats" at #SocialHub where it was already clear that most people didn't much beyond the interest for their own #ActivityPub project, to mingle in the discussions. I mentioned at the time in various thread "Do you want 'community-of-action' or just a mere discussion forum. But even for those questions there's hardly anyone interested.

I knew all this already from my time facilitating Humane Tech Community - now dormant, waiting for value at https://community.humanetech.com - but needed to more deeply understand.

The notion of #FSDL in its double meaning of #FreeSoftware development lifecycle, and #Fediverse solution delivery lifecycle rose from there, but also the need for a new adoption model.

just small circles 🕊

@smallcircles@social.coop replied · 19 hours ago

@nicol @nlnet

This will be named SX FractalHEARTS, an #innovation strategy and technology adoption model (TAM) fit for chaotic grassroots ecosystems (and turn them more chaordic over time).

💞 HEARTS here, like the FSDL, has a double meaning to the acronym too, depending on the Pyramid of Perspective layer that is focused on.

It stands either for Hedonics-based Early Adoption of Research and Technologies at the individual initiative scale of the pyramid (bottom layer)

And then for Hedonic Ecosystems for Adoption of Responsible Technologies at the higher layers, where we want to deal with the externalities that the introduction of the tech has when it lands in society, as best we can.

Best-known is the TAM of regular Bizz, which LinkedIn is full of. I got inspired in 2022 by some alternative also weirdly-acronymed TAM's, see: https://discuss.coding.social/t/challenge-fixing-the-fediverse-technology-adoption-lifecycle/38#alternative-adoption-models-4

'Fractal' stands for the pragmatic approach SX takes to organic growth at natural speed and rate of evolution, and its feedback loops.

just small circles 🕊

@smallcircles@social.coop replied · 19 hours ago

@nicol @nlnet

You help with #UI design of #CivicCRM! An example I see often..

A #community-driven #FOSS project where participants, mostly coders, sigh "Oh, if only a #UX designer started contributing, how much better could we reach the broader public". Things like that. And also for various other FSDL-related stakeholder roles you often see this whistful thinking.

So why not actively *attract* people with the skills you need?

The answer often given is that "They are not interested" or something like that. But this is not true. They don't know HOW to contribute, for instance. The workflow of issue-driven feature design-by-concensus that occurs in the issue tracker of a code forge doesn't map well onto workflows a typical designer needs, and vice versa.

https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#free-software-development-lifecycle

FSDL says everyone involved is a stakeholder also the devs themself. If you have a Need, then account for it.

In #SX the Process of solution development is *part of* the solution. Its all one sticky note.

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@nicol@social.coop replied · 14 hours ago

@smallcircles @nlnet there's a blog-post or talk about that – getting involved took years! I was a user for 9 years before I went on a sprint and started to contribute to the UI – initially just with the CSS for some else's extension for a mobile-responsive menu that got merged to core a year later…

It was another five years after that after using lockdown to create a cross-CMS theme for Civi (Finsbury Park)– that I eventually started on a Core-backed UI project in 2022, which we released in 2026. And even now, expertise still feels measured around tangible things like coding skills, over intangible things, such as intuiting UX/design/usability coz "anyone can do that". And that makes sense - you can review code, I can review CSS - but how can folk review 'subjective' UX patterns that are targetted at end-users who are mostly very different to a high-level super-performant, tech-savvy maintainer? I've seen two senior designers try to join in and leave; I just stuck around for years!

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