Positioning Friendly Forge Format

[aschrijver]

Note: This is copy pasted from this discussion because it deserves an independent topic

Positioning: forg.es

Given the social aspects, the ecosystem-level scope, I feel strongly that FFF project should be part of forg.es. It can help make this umbrella community meaningful, and it gives independence to the project, same as ForgeFed gives independence to forge federation.

This has additional benefits. I see forg.es as the home of an Ecosystem Alliance where all the sociotechnical ‘cross-cutting’ concerns of forging software (the craft and arts) can be addressed. If there is a crowdsourcing process, then it has to be defined only once. If there are multiple standardization processes, they can be based on the same reference material and improved over time.

Social coding

“Ecosystem Alliance” is a Social Coding best-practice defined by me that is part of the Social Coding FSDL. It is very interesting to elaborate the benefits such alliance can bring, and how it can be established. Note that FSDL is integral part of Social Coding Movement, and hence that it can be part of the Alliance around forges. It would be a great fit. forg.es can be member of the co-shared community (CC @realaravinth). I would love to discuss the ins and outs in more detail.

[realaravinth]

I have a strong feeling that people working on forg.es will be a very small group, and it would be impossible for them to adopt projects the way umbrella organisations like Apache Software Foundation does.

I propose an alternative: forg.es endorses projects that are aligned with its goals of enabling collaboration and improving interoperability between forges. The actual control of the project will remain in the hands of the project owners and forg.es will only be involved in campaigning and mediation.

[dachary]

I agree that the Friendly Forge Format belongs to forg.es and should move there as soon as it comes into existence. I considered the idea of committing time in the next twelve months to work with @realaravinth to get forg.es started. But I don’t have that kind of time and I’m very careful to not overextend myself

I will however carefully separate FFF from forgefriends (this is already happening with its own forum category, its own organization in the forge, its own grant application, etc.) as it should only be a dependency and not an integral part of forgefriends. It emerged from it and grows into something autonomous.

Once forg.es has the technical and organizational resources that forgefriends currently provide to FFF, I’ll do the legwork to move it.

[dachary]

@dachary

“Ecosystem Alliance” is a Social Coding best-practice defined by me that is part of

I’m still digesting this and this comment. They make some kind of intuitive sense and I feel an appeal but I need time to comment.

[realaravinth]

I don’t understand, if FFF moves to forg.es, you will continue to develop and maintain the project, right? If yes, they will become a member of forg.es for all practical purposes.

I am hesitant about moving ownership of projects under forg.es without some sort of commitment from the original creators to develop and maintain the project as it may not have the expertise needed to maintain such projects.

[dachary]

@realaravinth

I don’t understand, if FFF moves to forg.es, you will continue to develop and maintain the project, right? If yes, they will become a member of forg.es for all practical purposes.

Yes. What I cannot do is to become the maintainer of another organization: I already care for three (Enough, forgefriends and Hostea), this is as far as I can go. But working on F1F will be my primary focus for the year to come. And very likely until June 2024 at least. I don’t have clarity after that but at the very least it will be a project I work on weekly: all my Free Software related work, my ability to contribute to Free Software projects depend on it.

[aschrijver]

@realaravinth

I am hesitant about moving ownership of projects under forg.es without some sort of commitment from the original creators to develop and maintain the project as it may not have the expertise needed to maintain such projects.

I don’t see it as moving ownership, but purely as how the project is positioned. If forg.es is the home of an ecosystem alliance, then its particpants can use it to present their projects, i.e. as an entrypoint to them. But the project itself remains independently operated by those that took the commitment, just like before.

This is comparable to W3C. You don’t hear TBL saying “Well darn, I don’t know if I can handle another Community Group”.

If the community group aligns with the mission / vision of W3C and follows certain procedures, adheres to certain rules, they can start and operate independently. Of course in forg.es the analogy breaks, as it is not an official standards body and will not have all the pomp and ceremony. Other than that you could say it is a sort of ecosystem alliance.

[dachary]

It is an apt analogy and the key element here is that forg.es would need to provide and maintain a framework for projects to evolve within it in autonomy. And this is a lot of work, reason why I’m cautiously not committing myself to doing it

[aschrijver]

It might provide a ton of services, but initially none of that is needed imho. I could start with a website, that can have sub-pages or sub-domain for projects, and they may be a redirect even. That website is were newcomers learn about it, and position the effort in their mental picture of the whole forge-related ecosystem.

What forg.es itself is, and can be, should be slowly established. There’s no hurry there, either. A big difference to W3C is that it doesn’t need to be a steering body. It will likely fit in a same flat and transparent structure, with people operating with independence, similar to current forge federation projects.

The ecosystem alliance must be formed with buy-in from its participants. They should see merits, and benefit and share a vision / common understanding.

[dachary]

@aschrijver

It might provide a ton of services, but initially none of that is needed imho.

True. It is possible for forg.es to be created and just declare that this and this project developed elsewhere is in scope and F3 could have a link to forg.es in the documentation to express it makes sense to consider it is part of forg.es. That’s very little work on the F3 side of things.

[realaravinth]

@dachary

would need to provide and maintain a framework for projects to evolve within it in autonomy. And this is a lot of work

It is exciting work and as someone who has a lot to learn, It’s going to be a lot of fun working on it. Especially with your and @aschrijver 's guidance

[aschrijver]

Yes, I want to become part of the Ecosystem Alliance with Social Coding Movement and tie / map the FSDL to forge-related equivalents. And vice versa there may be alignment to FSDL, same as I advocated for ForgeFed.

Instead of continuing that advocacy when this would be part of a vision that forg.es adopts, envisioning how that may look like and evolve is then a shared effort. Which gives more freedom to ForgeFed project. In other words the advantages of such repositioning will be elaborated in the alliance.

Along with that I want to elaborate the best-practice pattern of Ecosystem Alliance itself. And there are other patterns to explore, such as Visionary Ideation and Open Strategy.