New essay: Seven theses on the Fediverse and the becoming of FLOSS
Recently, @rra and I have been working on an essay highlighting questions about the #Fediverse and how these are getting entangled with #FLOSS practices. From software production to structure and governance within alternative social media, online communities and politics.
The text follows a multi theses model, to map the different things we've been looking at and publish the current state of our research.
It is the closing chapter of a new publication from INC/Transmediale (https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/the-eternal-network)
PDF of the text: https://monoskop.org/images/c/cc/Mansoux_Aymeric_Abbing_Roel_Roscam_2020_Seven_Theses_on_the_Fediverse_and_the_Becoming_of_FLOSS.pdf
Feedback welcome. We're planning to publish an online version with more references!
@titi @rra Thanks for the feedback! We did not choose the license, it's boiler plate stuff from the publisher. Quite happy that they decided to make a PDF avail right away for free TBH. With that said, the online version that we will put will be licensed differently (we still haven't decided yet, but probably CC0). In general CC-ND does not prevent translation, but it just makes the translator work more as there is an extra step needed, that is getting an exception from the copyright owners. But I get your point. I think in this case the publisher use of ND is not meant to restrict translations, but to keep the circulation of the texts verbatim?
@320x200 @rra Thanks again, folks. Among others, I think that your approach about “strong links” (pg.114) is amazing :)
@320x200 @rra I have two pieces of feedback:
* One thing that strikes me as someone who does run a (small) instance, and does maintain a (small) software package, I think some more focus on the personal dynamics (people who moderate, administrate, develop are people, and not easily abstracted or generalized over) of that sort of situation would be useful. e.g.: if I want to do something, with mastodon.py, I generally will, and you just kind of have to trust that I am generally an okay person, and there may be personal reasons for some decisions that have nothing to do with "what would be the right thing" type considerations; "esprit de corps" in a moderation team; not just "how much process vs trust is desirable in a system what size" but also "how much process is actually possible, how has this turned out and why?", those kinds of things
* The part about funding models reminded me about why i.w. does not take donations: because that would legally make it a business in DE, with a LOT
@320x200 @rra of law that would then apply, some of which was specifically made because twitter and facebook and google and such cannot behave, some of which is just general running a business online law. I think that aspect, that "community-operated non-commercial social media website accessible internationally" is not really something that legal frameworks (especially in a country like here where the legal and political world has just recently caught up to the fact that websites exist at all) or past experience exist for, is something that deserves mentioning, I think
Thanks @halcy for taking the time to give us some feedback!
Point 1. Yes we definitively need to be more explicit about this. I think that's already somehow implied here and there but would need to be unpacked further more precisely. Point 2. Totally agree, and yes also totally missing from the text, def something to add in the next iteration.
CC @rra
@320x200 @rra (I notice this a bit late, but what I should maybe have lead with and usually would but I guess I just typed that post out start to end and didn't go back to read it: I thought it was a really interesting article and I think it's super interesting that there's now well structured work on the fediverse specifically. good luck with the publication!)
@320x200 @rra
Amazing to read this, great that it structures in one piece and analyses all the many happenings in fediverse. I have a bit of sadness in seing FLOSS being qualified as a-political and therefore opposed to fediverse. Not all FLOSS is apolitical, it has been a historical debate within the community and still is, maybe another agonist space.
But yeah great thanks for needed work.
Thanks for the kind words @natacha !
To be sure, @rra and I do not want to give the idea that FLOSS as a whole is apolitical (if that's how it reads now, maybe we need to tweak that a bit better). It is more of questioning whether or not its model and framework, and the way it has been historically voiced and rationalised, is still relevant today and if it is able to contain all the ideologies it has attracted since its infancy. It's also about defining what precisely is the political scope of FLOSS and what kind of politics it can or cannot support or facilitate. These are difficult and open questions, but they are timely. They need to be put on the table given the revival of interests in experimenting with conditions, constitutions, and constraints in collective forms of production. As seen with non-FLOSS licensing and codes of conducts for instance.
(In relation to FLOSS as an agonistic space in its own: shameless plug (and possibly more elements of discussions in relation to your remark) https://www.bleu255.com/~aymeric/dump/aymeric_mansoux-sandbox_culture_phd_thesis-2017.pdf)
@320x200 @rra
Yes I know this great work, I also feel like bringing forward along with political analysis the necessity to continue with the technical argument.
We also did an attempt here:
https://ps.zoethical.org/t/sfyw-software-freedom-your-way/19/2
For example, in the case of the fediverse we need to acknowledge domination, we cannot leave doors open and need to address the possibility of cooptation by surveillance capitalism .
@natacha looking forward to reading this text!
@320x200 @rra
lets continue the conversation of this as in the meantime we organised OFFDEM in brussels where there was also an activity pub gathering.
here is the manifesto that came out from it:
https://ps.zoethical.org/t/free-software-under-attack-an-offdem-manifesto/3314
would be great if you feel like comenting supporting sharing etc...
@320x200 @rra
"It seems that everything has already been argued, countered, and overexploited by both academics and artists. What else is left to do apart from constantly keeping up with new meme types and their meanings?"
Achieve justice -strive for it-, especially if you live on a Lawfare regime like I do. And do this openly without been persecuted by the regime authorities or ban and manipulated by their corporate masters like Facefuck or tweeter.
@320x200 @rra
"Another proposed response is to extend ActivityPub, one of the most popular and most discussed protocols of the Fediverse, with stronger authorization methods based on an object-capability model of computer security, allowing parties to retroactively withdraw consent from other parties to see or use their data."
That is a great idea in my opinion.
@320x200 @rra
Popper, Karl [1945]. The Open Society and Its Enemies.
"Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. "
The far right, as you called it, is not a political option. No place for the barbarians.
@320x200 @rra I would love to see this on a page web!