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Fediverse of dreams

Image depicting a simplified version of the Sustainable ecosystem evolution (SEE) model, that shows The Paradox of Emergence: The inflection point from where emergent solution value materializes exponentially and becomes apparent for anyone.

“Invest in your dreams to make them real”. It is but a simple credo, but one that more people might take to heart in their daily work, hobby, and life. Dreams about possibilities that exist, helps perceive and be ready when opportunities arise. Preparedness generally leads to better outcomes of the fruits of our labor. Yields higher benefits, leads to richer rewards. Think now, act better, so we can play more. Get on top of our own game. Basic common knowledge, platitudes really. Yet our modern world, the doomspiral of the daily news, our technological advances that are totally out of whack with what society needs. Hypercapitalism itself, this unfair fitness formula that drives Humanity to ruin and Humankind to the brink. They all disencourage us from having dreams and follow them through. To ensure bright future together we have to “dare to dream” in concert and at scale.

“Follow your dreams” is another platitude. Yet it is an #UrgentPlatitude that serves us well to take its universal wisdom to our heart. Paradox of Emergence tells the tale how our inability to dream, withholds us from realizing our vision. This article reflects on how FOSS and fediverse movements can make sustainable progress and evolve towards a brighter future. All it takes is that we “dare to play”.

Alt-text to the diagram. Click to expand a detailed explanation.

The diagram shows an exponential ‘value creation’ graph, with on the X-access the progress of evolution along the solution path. Below the axis the various lifecycle stages of the fediverse service delivery lifecycle are listed: Inception, Ideation, Realization, Delivery, Experience. Rate of value creation & aggregation of the social supply line depends on participation rate.

On the Y-axis is the Potential of the solution design, where value-add of investment in the solution depends on how emergent design leads to desired outcomes. It is not easily perceived as it exists mostly still in emergent space.

Diagram has 3 quadrants. On the bottom left the participation zone is where prolonged Investment is asked, while only little value can be demonstrated in the field. The biggest part above the participation / investment zone is the anticipation zone, where we dream and find possibilities and related opportunities that may have great potential. Expectation mismatch is a risk as the emergent value is stil invisble to most people.

The paradox is solved at an inflection point along the evolution axis of the solution, called appropriately ‘the paradox of emergence’ point, when actual value is demonstrated by positive societal impact that grows via SX feedback loops. This is the solution zone, the full right side of the diagram, where value creation can grow exponentially and dreams turn to their realization. Now there are sustainability risks to healthy evolution to monitor well.

Grassroots fediverse evolution

Diagram shows how the fediverse diverges from open standards, facing non-linear increasing complexity to facilitate interoperability. See the expandable region in the article that provides a detailed alt-text for this diagram.

The ActivityPub fediverse is doing great, right?

But do you know the extent to which the fediverse installed base has strayed from the promise and power contained in the open standards documents? And that it constrains itself ever further into limited application areas, a self-inflicted narrow straitjacket, if we allow this standards divergence to continue? Did you also know that it is essentially only two (!!) people who are the pillars that try to uphold the entire grassroots standardization process, both volunteers? We MUST improve our standardization practices to assure a healthy future for the fediverse social network. This blog post contains a reflection on my past experience and impressions after eight years of doing community work to help advance the social web.

Alt-text to the diagram. Click to expand a detailed explanation.

Interoperability in practice. A chart with a horizontal axis that goes in 2 directions. On the left it moves towards chaotic grassroots growth, and on the right side towards open standards adoption. The Y-axis indicates level of complexity. The center indicates a low level of complexity.

On the left side of the axis we first find the ActivityPub open standard, with a relatively low complexity level. However the prevailing method to evolving the ecosystem is driven by post facto interoperability, where tech debt and protocol decay is introduced and accepted, which must be refactored and evolve alongside the open standard. Since this doesn’t happen, the fediverse grassroots environment is shifting more to the left into non-lineary increasing accidental complexity. Deviating more and more from the ActivityPub standard and the promise that it holds to offer the Future of Social networking.

On the right side, to contrast against fediverse, we find the Solid Project led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, which is based on a whole range of W3C Linked Data related open standards and draft documents. There is no grassroots movement that drives progress, but a steering committee. Progress is restrained by open standards adoption and support. Higher levels of interoperability require more rigour and formal standardization, and this also leads to non-linear growth of, in this case, engineered complexity. Solution developers have to wait for many standards to mature, leading to inertia. Solid’s upfront design approach suffers from the chicken/egg problem that lack of standards support withholds developers from technology adoption that increases standards support.


How we Reimagine the Social web

Diagram depicting the Free software development lifecycle, which consists of 5 stages. Consecutively these are Inception, Ideation, Realization, Delivery, and Dispersal. The stages are labeled with the corresponding hedonic incitements of think, act, feel, play, dream, and be. Overarching all stages is Evolution of the solution throughout the entire lifecycle.

Welcome social coder. Ahead of you lies an adventure. To explore with others innovative new ways to collaborate and create value together. We focus on the delivery of Sustainable open social systems — elevating FOSS projects to become Sustainable open social systems, i.e. SOSS initiatives — that provide a means for people to earn a living in free software development and in the areas where they are most passionate. This introduction provides an overview of our movement, and some of its innovative aspects.