Tag: FOSS

Building a better world, one link, one line of code at a time

Once upon a time, not so long ago… in a world dominated by the #dotcons, closed-source technology and centralized decision-making, a small group of passionate activists and developers came together to reboot an old way of building technology. They believed that technology should serve the needs of people, not only the profit of big corporations and governments. They called themselves the #4opens community.

The #4opens community believed that openness and trust were the path we need to take to creating technology that served the needs of people. They rallied round the codified existing #FOSS, open-source working practices as a process called the #4opens, which consisted of four #KISS principles: open data, open source, open “industrial” standards, and open process. They understand and valued that by embracing these principles, they could create technology that was more transparent, collaborative, and decentralized.

The first principle of the #4opens is #opendata. The community believed that data should be freely available to everyone, so that anyone could use it to build new tools and uses. They created a platform: #OMN where people could share data openly and collaborate on projects together.

The second principle of the #4opens is the #mainstreaming idea of #opensource. The #4opens community believed that software should be free and open for anyone to use, modify, and distribute. They created a library of #FOSS software that people and communities use to build grassroots tools and services.

The third principle of the #4opens is open “industrial” standards. This principle was a little more complex, but it basically meant that technology should be built using open, standardized protocols that anyone could use. This would ensure that technology was interoperable and that people could easily switch between different tools and services to push the projects that grow in the most healthy way.

The fourth and final principle of the #4opens is open process. This was perhaps the most important of all. The #4opens community believed that technology should be developed using transparent, collaborative processes that anyone could participate in. They organized on a platform https://unite.openworlds.info/ where people could share ideas, collaborate on projects, and make decisions together.

Over time, the #4opens community grew and expanded. They built new tools and services based on openness and trust. They created an ecosystem of developers, designers, and users who worked together to create technology that served the needs of people, and pushed back the profit greed of big corporations and governments and the people who server them.

And so the #4opens community continued to grow and evolve, creating a more healthy vision for technology. They knew that their work was just the start, they were determined to keep pushing, to keep building a better world, one link, one line of code at a time.

Nurturing community’s – tech is not going to do this

On the #fediverse, we need to work/think about the need to cross-link the subject instance.

As, the idea of as instance as a community is lightly built into the code of mastodon. So individuals and groups need to push this into existence, then add issues to the #ygithub mastodon tracker to try and get this into the code (hard job due to #feudalism as governance in #FOSS).

As a first step, we need to build flows between subject instances by individually fallowing people cross subject instance, to leak the content into timelines. Then encourage people to look at the global and local timelines, not just their personal timeline, which is likely pretty empty.

Nurturing community’s – the tech is not going to do this for us, is my thinking. This is a problem as community’s have the power for social change/challenge we need to get out of this mess.

I am asking people to try working round the poor “community” side of the hard coded ideas of community in mastodon.