cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/476057

The activity of the SocialHub community, like all other 'fediverse-substrate' bodies, has waned. From an active community to just a forum. Now a decision has to be made for the future of SocialHub. The options are stopping, be just a forum, or revitalize a vibrant community. The last option needs people willing and committed to do so. To step up for the sake of Fediverse Futures.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/476057

The activity of the SocialHub community, like all other 'fediverse-substrate' bodies, has waned. From an active community to just a forum. Now a decision has to be made for the future of SocialHub. The options are stopping, be just a forum, or revitalize a vibrant community. The last option needs people willing and committed to do so. To step up for the sake of Fediverse Futures.

The activity of the SocialHub community, like all other 'fediverse-substrate' bodies, has waned. From an active community to just a forum. Now a decision has to be made for the future of SocialHub. The options are stopping, be just a forum, or revitalize a vibrant community. The last option needs people willing and committed to do so. To step up for the sake of Fediverse Futures.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/364580

The EU via their Horizons Europe program, the Next Generation Internet (where e.g. NLnet are associated) (NGI Initiative) are the biggest funders of the free software projects that comprise the fedi. Without their support fedi wouldn't be what it is now.

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) recently launched a pilot to have both a Peertube and Mastodon instance on the Fediverse, hashtagged #EUVideo and #EUVoice respectively. On these servers official European Commission related institutions as well as individuals working at the EC can have their accounts.

This recognition of the Fediverse and the interest that exists in entering our decentralized social networking environment is an important development. With success of the pilot there will undoubtedly be a follow-up and more initiatives to come. First results until now is that the parties that 'test the waters' are very happy on the kinds of interactions and quality of discussions they encounter on the Fediverse.

That is no wonder, of course. Fediverse offers social networking that is more personal and friendly, than corporate social media which is about 'broadcasting' and influencing.

Current pilot can be a ramp up to something much bigger:

Fediverse: United in Diversity

A social networking technology where everyone can find their place and participate, that is not controlled by Big Tech and commercial corporate interests. For the European Commission there is the opportunity to passionately put their support behind fostering "The European Take On Social Networking". Fediverse aligns to the NGI Initiative who envision an Internet for Humans.

How you can help

To progress towards this vision it is important for the EU/EC pilot to be a success. As fedizen you can help with this. Here are a couple of ways to offer your support:

→ Follow, boost, favourite the EUVoice accounts on Mastodon and EUVideo Peertube videos.

• These early adopter accounts are still learning how the Fediverse works, what the culture is and e.g. how we value accessibility and image captions. You can help them discover.
• Many accounts are still Twitter bridges and broadcast only. Some others respond and interact with fedizens, notably @EC_OSPO, @EDPS and @EC_NGI. The operators of the Twitter bridges don't know what the value of Fediverse is to them, and if they should spend time with us. All reactions by us are monitored, so we can help them here.
• There are people giving highly toxic reactions to almost any EC-related toot. There are many things to be critical about. Politics is about the discussion of these issues, and good arguments help more than toxicity. Here we have opportunity to show we are different than the cesspit that Twitter is.
• Do not expect too much, too soon. There is a complex organization structure at the EC, and given the politically sensitive nature all communications are weighed carefully and undergo multiple levels of approval. Plans move slowly, but they are in motion.

→ Let's give the fedi accounts more followers than they have on Twitter, if possible.

• For instance the Director General of Informatics at DG DIGIT, Veronica Gaffey, has 191 fedi followers in short time, while on Twitter she has 279 followers.

→ If you are on Twitter, then help encourage EC institutions to also have an account on EUVoice.

• A notable example is the European Parliament. Respond to their tweets and name-drop the fedi as THE place to be.

→ We are gathering a group of volunteers on SocialHub that can help train EC representatives in how to use the Fediverse effectively and understand its culture.

• The activities we do here, starting later this year, stand to benefit any administration or institution interested to join the Fediverse, not just EU representatives.

This post is also cross-posted to the Social Coding Movement that is dedicated among others to establish a Peopleverse on top of the fedi. Social Coding is not yet officially launched.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/364580

The EU via their Horizons Europe program, the Next Generation Internet (where e.g. NLnet are associated) (NGI Initiative) are the biggest funders of the free software projects that comprise the fedi. Without their support fedi wouldn't be what it is now.

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) recently launched a pilot to have both a Peertube and Mastodon instance on the Fediverse, hashtagged #EUVideo and #EUVoice respectively. On these servers official European Commission related institutions as well as individuals working at the EC can have their accounts.

This recognition of the Fediverse and the interest that exists in entering our decentralized social networking environment is an important development. With success of the pilot there will undoubtedly be a follow-up and more initiatives to come. First results until now is that the parties that 'test the waters' are very happy on the kinds of interactions and quality of discussions they encounter on the Fediverse.

That is no wonder, of course. Fediverse offers social networking that is more personal and friendly, than corporate social media which is about 'broadcasting' and influencing.

Current pilot can be a ramp up to something much bigger:

Fediverse: United in Diversity

A social networking technology where everyone can find their place and participate, that is not controlled by Big Tech and commercial corporate interests. For the European Commission there is the opportunity to passionately put their support behind fostering "The European Take On Social Networking". Fediverse aligns to the NGI Initiative who envision an Internet for Humans.

How you can help

To progress towards this vision it is important for the EU/EC pilot to be a success. As fedizen you can help with this. Here are a couple of ways to offer your support:

→ Follow, boost, favourite the EUVoice accounts on Mastodon and EUVideo Peertube videos.

• These early adopter accounts are still learning how the Fediverse works, what the culture is and e.g. how we value accessibility and image captions. You can help them discover.
• Many accounts are still Twitter bridges and broadcast only. Some others respond and interact with fedizens, notably @EC_OSPO, @EDPS and @EC_NGI. The operators of the Twitter bridges don't know what the value of Fediverse is to them, and if they should spend time with us. All reactions by us are monitored, so we can help them here.
• There are people giving highly toxic reactions to almost any EC-related toot. There are many things to be critical about. Politics is about the discussion of these issues, and good arguments help more than toxicity. Here we have opportunity to show we are different than the cesspit that Twitter is.
• Do not expect too much, too soon. There is a complex organization structure at the EC, and given the politically sensitive nature all communications are weighed carefully and undergo multiple levels of approval. Plans move slowly, but they are in motion.

→ Let's give the fedi accounts more followers than they have on Twitter, if possible.

• For instance the Director General of Informatics at DG DIGIT, Veronica Gaffey, has 191 fedi followers in short time, while on Twitter she has 279 followers.

→ If you are on Twitter, then help encourage EC institutions to also have an account on EUVoice.

• A notable example is the European Parliament. Respond to their tweets and name-drop the fedi as THE place to be.

→ We are gathering a group of volunteers on SocialHub that can help train EC representatives in how to use the Fediverse effectively and understand its culture.

• The activities we do here, starting later this year, stand to benefit any administration or institution interested to join the Fediverse, not just EU representatives.

This post is also cross-posted to the Social Coding Movement that is dedicated among others to establish a Peopleverse on top of the fedi. Social Coding is not yet officially launched.

And also tooted in https://mastodon.social/@humanetech/108633314902525240

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/346124

Innovation requires resources

Innovation happens wherever we put our efforts towards. The space race and the technologies it gave us is an example. Finding ways of reducing the cost of production of commodities is another. The green transition is another example.

These are the bounds that determine how innovation happens in federated social networks. They will only innovate when there is enough effort put towards them. Beyond technical innovation (perhaps in a TOR kind-of-network way, or in a Git kind-of-version-control way), a full-fledged piece of software that is effective and attractive enough for people to use, takes resources.

These resources largely refer to labor power. Remember, we're not talking about maintenance costs, but development costs. Programmers require money to survive.

FLOSS is no exception

Yes, FLOSS software can survive with volunteers, but even those volunteers have to pay their bills. Yes, the internet plus (as Bruce Schneier defines it), copyleft licenses, and already-existing technical know-how reduce the cost of production, but the costs are there nonetheless. Someone needs to do the work.

I think about open source projects I admire. Diaspora received exceptional funding, relative to its goals. Signal was heavily funded by donations. Element has a business model that lets them work towards improving Matrix. Linux has many companies that depend on it and are able to finance innovation on it.

This argument, applied to Lemmy, makes me wonder. How do Nutomic and Dessalines handle it? Are they precious exceptions that drive Lemmy forward because of their personal values and their willingness to use their technical know-how for the development of this platform? Will Lemmy thrive without them?

This brings me to another point: FLOSS and federated software has the advantage that many people are willing to spend their time working towards laudable goals. They are not motivated by profit as much as improving humanity.

FLOSS has a problem that others systematically address: making things attractive

The issue with FLOSS projects is that they mainly respond to thought-out worldviews. That is, people are willing to engage with this kind of software because of logical reasons (logos, as Aristotle and those guys would call it). It is rarer to have people engage with FLOSS and federated software because of emotions (pathos).

Unfortunately for humans, we are emotional creatures. I get put off by how unattractive the Free Software Foundation's website is, despite loving the values that the foundation stands for. I get put off by using terminals, despite the fact that plenty of FLOSS software does not have GUIs. I hate Thunderbird's calendar, despite using it daily.

Companies with investors and FLOSS projects with enough funding know this and therefore pay graphical designers, user experience experts, and sometimes market researchers to make products attractive. This takes money.

Conclusion

And that brings us back to my point: for free software to be chosen by most people, it has to have enough labor behind it to make it both effective and attractive. This is the hurdle it needs to be overcome.

Notes on my sources

These are reflections that arose after a series of conversations with a friend who works at an 'innovation office'. His job is explicitly to design an 'innovation ecosystem', which attempts to create innovation with minimal investment. Everyone at that office knows this is bullshit. Innovation rarely comes without money. Therefore, they basically look for investors for projects that don't have enough money. That's it.

This view, that innovation requires investment, is shared by Anwar Shaikh and classical economics.

However, it's more complicated with the research behind innovation.

Let's take 'platforms of innovation'. For example, cosmopolitan cities, the internet, and universities are hubs of innovation. However, it's a mistake to think that these are 'neutral' in terms of costs. All of them require operational costs. All of them imply costs of technical training. Even here, there are costs that cannot be ignored.

If we look at mission-oriented innovation, the situation becomes clearer. Universities doing cancer-related research, States doing green energy-related research, or companies doing market-related research all clearly align with the argument I made above.

Finally, it's perfectly possible that the argument I made above is not at all original. In fact, I doubt it is. If anything, it could be similar to a high-school student discovering their own proof of the pythagorean theorem: it's not new for the community of knowers who already know it, but it's new from the point of view of the student. At least I get to share this with you and hear your thoughts about it.

Oh, and given that Lemmy doesn't have terms of service yet, I wanted to make sure I could share this in the future. I licensed it under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Weird. I know. Oh well. At least you get to share it without fear!

Forge Federation Needs Your Help 🤗

🚀 Join the forge federation matrix chatroom, or the (less active) gitea federation room.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/279006

Note: Responses on cross-posted threads may be missed. The best way to indicate your interest is to reply to the SocialHub forum topic, or alternatively on the Fediverse announcement here.

Note: Responses on cross-posted threads may be missed. The best way to indicate your interest is to reply to the SocialHub forum topic, or alternatively on the Fediverse announcement here.