The drama around #ForkOff only reinforces my theory that the only healthy way to handle FOSS projects is via multi-stakeholder cooperatives where both devs and users have their say. The amount of bitterness I'm seeing right now is the most eminent byproduct of the "benevolent dictatorship" model which has been the scourge of the open source world since the beginning of times.
Turn Mastodon into a cooperative NOW!
@syndikalista the entitlment comes from the "i make the rules because I can code" attitude so many developers share. Benevolent dicatorship only makes the entitlement worse because it somewhat legitimizes that kind of soft power. We've been running social.coop as a cooperative for over an year now and we never, ever saw this kind of attitude from neither dev or sysop people, precisely because there are balances and checks (eg. some decisions can only be taken when approved unanimously)
@Antanicus to sum up my saying: Coops are not the solution to all problems, even design problems, when co-designing is part of the use.
@syndikalista I'm not sure what you mean by co-designing in this context, could you please elaborate? Thanks!
@Antanicus Well, the request of (new) functions while under use is the point of stress here. And some make these functions themself, others cant. But the people know by how it was done up until now, that the integration of functions is possible. By request the are co-designing, and also designing the environment in which the requests happen.
@Antanicus The environment can be cooperated, but that does not make the point of stress impossible, just a little less likely, because people will not join the coop by default
@syndikalista they won't join by default, but, if they want a vote, they will have to. And since the current drama is all about people not being heard, I believe having a vote that HAS to be respected by the dev-members of the coop is actually a great selling point for the Mastodon Coop idea
@Antanicus so you have this group which either cant or do not want to create the functions they want/request. Saying the environment of coop will solve this problem takes the coop as a grand solution it is not. Because by design not all people who request functions will participate and the “oh but you could join” will not lead to less stress than “oh you could fork it”
@syndikalista ICA principle number 3: "Members contribute equitably to, and democratically control, the capital of their co-operative".
There is a common misconception about cooperatives being slightly more structured communties, but that's not true: cooperatives are actual businesses, where people put actual money to get actual stuff done. There is no such thing as a developer saying "people want this but I won't do it", because people are _paying_ the dev to do it.
@Antanicus i was not focusing on the resisting developers here. These are not my concerns. But the entitlement of people believing their request has to put into action, when different ideas of the next step are around, the environment does not has the space to discuss these in place and no accountable assessment of will for specific requests are in place.
@Antanicus this is what is called a wicked problem, where no simple solution is possible, just claiming Coop is the solution does not sound right to me, but having more coop is definitely part of the solution for me
@syndikalista @Antanicus have you seen http://www.pluralistcommonwealth.org/ ? Yes to co-ops but also other forms of democratising wealth
@jdaviescoates @Antanicus I know about pcw, but do you think this is about democratizing of wealth?
@syndikalista @Antanicus not even sure what "this" is? was just replying out of context 😀
@Antanicus Sketch that out for me. I'm skeptical that the co-op model would produce substantially different results when the platform scales. You'd just have whatever elected board or committee taking the heat on contentious issues I suspect.
@BeechMtn each instance would be represented by a person, who in turn would be accountable to their own instance members and tasked with keeping them in the loop. Every vote would require every instance to vote internally and then communicate the decision to the Mastodon Coop. No elected boards, just direct democratic decision. The biggest downside I see is that voting could take a long time, but since Mastodon is not meant to turn out a profit, that's a non-issue
@Antanicus Thanks - this sounds simple & workable. I think my struggle with this ties in with two issues: overall community diversity, which seems to be reflected in this late unpleasantness. :)
Somewhat related to the above - I'm not altogether sure the Rochdale/Western European / 7CP model "as-is" should be the ideal for designing this particular co-op. Still thinking about that part.
@BeechMtn @Antanicus here is #fairmondo/s attempt at 7 principles for #platformcoop/s.
https://primer.commonstransition.org/4-more/5-elements/case-studies/case-study-fairmondo
@samtoland @Antanicus I love this!
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@Antanicus Isn't cooperatives an economic model for running businesses?
How does a free software project turn into a cooperative? Does this imply setting up a company first and registering it as a cooperative?
I'm not challenging your viewpoint but have no clue how this might work out in practice. I totally get it when people say "turn Amazon into a cooperative", but Mastodon, how?
@njoseph hey, thanks for the questions! Here's a TL;DR version: cooperatives are businesses, but, unlike regular companies, they don't serve the need of investors (ie. to turn out a profit) but the needs of those working or benefitting from the cooperative itself. At social.coop we've been running our instance as a cooperative for over an year now, with great success. Members pay a monthly fee that's used to cover for expenses and compensate working member for their job. Come visit us! :)
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@Antanicus to add to that - suggest keeping more of a Federated approach to both the financial support and to representation of user voice.
Instances would gain representation upon reaching certain user and dev support thresholds.
That federation council would then resolve a host of issues related to software and community as well as dev awards.
Not against full multi-stakeholder structure but seems like a lot of people like the autonomy in FOSS and instance self-determination in general.
Instance autonomy is key. Inter-cooperation should be based on creating useful shared resources and means for coordination and mutual support.
ForkOff Co-op Governance Discourse Show more
@Antanicus There is no dictator. Someone is sharing their time and server bandwidth with you. If you aren’t interested you can quit any time. If you think you can make a better one, go for it. Nobody is stopping you.
@Antanicus Forks, and especially in a fediverse, is not a bad thing. It would actually strengthen it.
And I have been in enough organizations (political and not) to know that a Coop would not have prevented the discourse yesterday. There the solution would be to leave the Coop/instance. All organizations have calamity. It is part of it's life cycle. How relations within it works.
> It would actually strengthen it.
- *Press X to doubt.* Fragmentation is hardly a good thing, especially for a young project like Mastodon. "If you don't like it make your own" is a childish and frankly anti-democratic attitude, meant to alienate rather than include and it speaks volumes about the narcissism that runs strong in the FOSS space. Adults compromise and grow together, children pick up their toys and leave.
@Antanicus Well, both yes and no. Fragmentation can be both good and bad. When it comes to federation it is in most cases a good thing. It keeps people motivated as they can create their vision instead of someone elses.
Forking is a way to solve infighting. Something to do when there are no compromise.
Kids are much better at solving infighting. They need 5 minutes and they are friends again. An adult fight is much more complex and can end in multiple friendships lost.
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@Antanicus I don't go live in your house. I know the boundaries and follow your rules when I visit. The same deal apply with FOSS projects. It has nothing with anti-democracy. Democracy and freedom has with the access to the code. If you want a different governing you can take that code and let it be controlled by org of your choosing.
FOSS is mostly voluntary.. and if people are not allowed to do what they please, they will quit. So you gain nothing by forcing coexistence.
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@shellkr
> FOSS is mostly voluntary.. and if people are not allowed to do what they please, they will quit.
-The whole point of having FOSS projects adopt the cooperative model is to turn this long-held assumption on its head and turn FOSS into something you can actually make a living out of _while_ doing something you like.
@Antanicus You don't necessarily need a cooperative to be able to do that. Eugen can already live on donations made for Mastodon. I am quite sure Pixelfed will too eventually. Many instances can also support their costs. I am not against the cooperative model. It is a good solution..
Making a cooperative right now would take resources and stamina that might not be good for the project. Development would slow down which is not a good thing when you have a momentum.
@shellkr
> Eugen can already live on donations made for Mastodon.
- I am sure he can, but that's a _wildly_ volatile income stream, one that can hardly give him the stability and peace of mind any working person deserves. Besides, in a donation-based model, him leaving Mastodon could put the whole in jeopardy, as his fame would leave the project with him. Both problems could be greatly mitigated in a cooperative
@Antanicus No, because a fork would very likely take over (as is the usual case). Donations that went to Eugen will likely be reverted to the new maintainer(s).
A cooperative wouldn't really change anything. In fact it would risk receiving even less in donations as it put another layer between devs and users. The benefit of a coop would be on the governing side. Like that it could delegate and reduce responsibilities of Eugen.
@Antanicus i would argue against it, this is more about the environment and entitlement a part of the community is in. This would not be much different in a coop, as you can see when people go voting/participates in elections and the wrong faction gains power, the outcome is close to what i saw yesterday. It only would hit/target more people.