How to communicate about the completion of the Gitea grant?

Bonjour,

In two weeks from now, the last money of the Gitea federation grant will be spent. This is excellent news and I’m grateful that @techknowlogick took the time to make it happen.

I can think of a few ideas worth communicating about:

  • Gitea is working towards federation
  • Funding federation makes a difference
  • It is not trivial to get good people to work for XYZ even if there is funding (see this also on this particular topic)
  • Call for more funding
  • Get more people to join the forge federation monthly call
  • … more ?
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The availability of the grant was no small deal, the end results are neither. There’s cause to make this a celebratory event.

I would try to turn this into a larger blog post. One that is likely to be broadly shared and could find itself on the frontpage of hacker news with a lot of upvotes. So I would not use a report format, but an article format. Some 1st thoughts on a structure…

Title: Gitea’s first steps towards social coding. How forge friends unite.
Summary: Code forge platforms are traditionally seen as technical tools to support a software project. Gitea moves beyond that narrow vision. To a world where coders unite and collaborate across open communities to bring rich ecosystems come about.

  • Gitea: How unique capabilities that are being added will set Gitea apart (PR / Vision)
    • Compelling use case from end-user perspective (Positioning)
    • Brief elaboration how it works under the covers (Comprehension)
  • Forgefriends: What the future of social coding holds (PR / Vision)
    • What are the objectives and why is it so important that they succeed (Mission)
    • What is the role of community and where can you jump in? (Community)
  • Gitea is the first forge that is working towards federation (Background)
    • How it got started (Grant)
    • What’s already done (Status)
    • How it will move forward (Roadmap)
  • The importance of funding and contributing (Call for Help)
    • How funding FOSS makes the difference
    • Why your help is utterly important (Appeal)
    • Where you can jump into the fray (Call for Action)
  • Announcement of events to shape things further (Onboarding)
    • Ramp up to a hackathon?
    • ‘Job listings’ → concrete statements of needs (We Need You!)

I wouldn’t just discuss this in a monthly call. Celebrate! Organize a separate vidcall where both Gitea and Forgefrends present.

In general do not focus too much onf “Github, dominance, walled garden, big tech, bla bla, bla…” and also not too deeply on “Federation this and that, proxy here, proxy there, etc etc…” but on the vision that sets both Gitea and Forgefriends in their own power. Make people dream of what can be and how they really should be part of that future and help bring it about.

I think in terms of community building it is time to discuss with Gitea folks. To what extent will they embrace the vision of social coding? Forge the inter-community connection: Gitea is the first forge friend in the forward-looking and exciting future where free software flourishes.


Update: I just sent two toots that more or less align with what’s described in this post.

I’ll work on a draft after December 1st (I’m on vacation therefore only discussing and not doing things that are time consuming), the bullet points you provided are very helpful :+1:

Or turn the December monthly call into a special event primarily celebrating this? I’m trying to minimize the legwork :slight_smile: The date is set, the French and Chinese interpreters are booked and ready and the agenda is yet to be determined. Sounds like a good combination.

The main obstacle for me to reach out to the Gitea community is my lack of GitHub account and Discord account: they are the primary locations where the community discusses.

Reading your enthusiastic vision is quite motivating :sparkles:

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At this point I don’t suppose anything will be done to followup and inspire people with this example. It is however worth noting that it was mentioned by @techknowlogick during their talk in the forge federation webinar.