#Tag
Given a "united commons" and "participative software development".
What is a Project?
An example. You start "Hello world" project, simplest possible. And then - because its a typescript project - you do npm install.
Now what is your Project?
From #FOSS perspective nothing much changed. It compiles and runs.
From #SOSS perspective you've just interwoven your project deep into a huge grassroots chaotic commons, and are exposed to the #sustainability risks of that decision.
FOSS == ✅️ software artifact
FOSS != ❌️ software project
SOSS == 🌱 sustainable software project
FOSS == ✅️ software artifact
FOSS != ❌️ software project
SOSS == 🌱 sustainable software project
I made a similar case to @erlend and @zicklag some time ago, relating to #Muni town's #p2p technologies.
If one is content with small uptake, and maybe earning sustainable income from that for a small team, or even a decent SMB or mid-sized business, then all is well.
If ones ambition level is larger than that, things are a whole different matter, and much more forces need to be accounted for.
At Social coding commons the #FSDL considers these..
https://coding.social/introduction/#free-software-development-lifecycle
Aside: I recently gave #FSDL double meaning depending on context..
Fediverse social development lifecycle: Sociosphere. #SX inter-personal perspective, Social web, social experiences, socio-cultural impact, fediverse developer ecosystem, fediverse #culture.
Free software development lifecycle: Technosphere. Free software movement, #SOSS initiatives, service / solution development. Ecosystem formation in grassroots environments, cocreation.
And we must support free and open source that’s for people, not just corporations and government. It says something that we (Small Technology Foundation) have zero public funding even though everything we is for the common good and free and open source.
You're both quite right. I agree. As I see it when it comes to FOSS sustainability (which imho is inherently unsustainable atm) we are dealing with a wicked problem, which can only be solved by a multi-pronged solution. For some projects this might be beneficial, while others be better off with a different mix of sustainability tools-in-the-toolbox.
As you may know I focus on #SOSS now, as a model. Sustainable open social systems, having #FOSS as output.
You should see these stages and the arrows as indicative. This was inspired by RUP, the Rational unified process which had a brief spark of popularity years ago. There you have stages and parallel tracks for various disciplines which all cover the entire lifecycle, but are most prominent only in particular stages. You can see that depicted in the diagram at:
Interestingly the Dispersal stage provides a different perspective of what happens with a FOSS project at the end of its lifecycle.
So a project isn't "dead" and work / energy wasted. It's value lives on in the commons, it disperses. In countless ways the value is persistent.
I just made a reference to dispersed value, and it inspired me also to model an important concept for Social experience design #SX and Sustainable open social systems #SOSS as initiatives where #FOSS evolves.
Contributions to #FOSS constitute unexpected and precious 🎁 gifts.
A space for Bonfire maintainers and contributors to communicate
