Open App Ecosystem and Collaborative Technology Alliance

I'm in a meeting so I can't fully explain my rare use of "Block" yet. I'll follow up later.

Ah, I'll delete that other thread I just started.. We can discuss Greg's block here. The email notification I got from Loomio just took me to a bare poll divorced from this discussion thread with no chance to discuss.

(Deleted the extra thread. The link from the proposal notification email was the Loomio design flaw.)

I have some time between meetings so let me explain (a bit) more.

Regarding decision process: My Block is a starting position, not a fixed position or "vote". Also, I don't expect anyone to automatically respect Blocks! However, when someone creates a formal proposal using the Agree/Disagree/Abstain/Block model, I try to give my feedback literally.

"Block" is my default starting position for a spontaneous proposal to IMO change the nature (as well as the name) of this group, when (1) I perceive no sufficient cause and (2) I have no idea whether others will or won't have strong objections.

I hope we will inclusively address concerns about changing the name or not changing the name. If other people really want to alter this group and no one has unyielding objections, then I expect to remove my Block.

Personal preference: Admittedly, I dislike the idea of turning this into a discussion group for the general concept of "open app ecosystems". That's an important goal, but I think that Loomio is a poor tool for it. I'd prefer to pursue broad creative dialogue in a team chat program like Mattermost or Riot.

I think Loomio's a great tool for specific projects with specific goals, to be used along with team chat and task/goal management systems. I've been hoping that "Open App Ecosystem" will eventually become such a project. However, I can pursue my ecosystem-nurturing goals regardless of what happens here.

I look forward to other feedback on the proposal!

"Block" is my default starting position for a spontaneous proposal to IMO change the nature (as well as the name) of this group,

I don't think the nature of the group has been that well defined.

The facts on the ground say that more than one open app ecosystem already exists among members of the group:
* DIgLife has their own app ecosystem with a bunch of apps with connecting tissues including single signon, a dashboard, a bot, and a lovely overview diagram.
* @luandrovieira is creating an app ecosystem based on SSB, as mentioned above in this and other threads.
* An open app ecosystem is trying to get going in FairCoop. That one and Luandro's might be able to interoperate, or at least share components, but we don't know yet.
* Lynn and I are also talking to the Mutual Aid Networks and might get something going with them, which might be able to use some of the components from the FairCoop ecosystem. Or not.
* Communecter also has their own app ecosystem, and the FairCoop is talking about using some of their components.
* I just started an experimental app in Holochain that @mayel may continue in a tag-team handoff.
* Could be more, for all I know...

I don''t know what that says about the nature of the group, or whether Loomio is a good environment for whatever it wants to be. So far, Loomio seems to be a good place to share ideas and info and get acquainted and occasionally make some decisions.

@gregorycassel - did that all make sense? What do you think?

It makes sense yes-- and while I don't think Loomio is a good place for such general discussion, it could be a sufficient place if that's what people want.

Here's another big concern of mine. If this Loomio group is renamed as "Open App Ecosystems", I'd feel personally compelled to let go of using the name of "Open App Ecosystem" for any specific project. I think the names would be too similar & confusing.

I don't mean to imply that'd necessarily be a permanent loss. However, I wouldn't personally consent to naming any specific project as "Open App Ecosystem" if an active discussion group (with related participants) were called "Open App Ecosystems".

I think the OAE name has significant historic value and promotional potential, and my work has consistently supported the OAE concept for years. Thus, if* this group gets directly defined as a multi-project discussion place, I'd much prefer for the inclusive name to be something other than "Open App Ecosystems"-- and to preserve the OAE name for a (potential, TBD) project and (very general, flexible) open standard.

BTW I applaud you @strypey for creating a spontaneous proposal and trying to get stuff done. However I frankly never expect proposals to pass unless they've been prototyped and discussed. I hope you will consider my specific concern above about the OAE name(s).

I also disagree, here are my initial thoughs. I think of an "ecosystem" not as a monolith pretty much by definition. A couple things here:

There is the economic and social ecosystem piece of the concept, an ecosystem of the people and organizations who are networked. Eventually this will be everyone with some degrees of separation, an overlapping ecosystem of networks kind of thing. Some things will be more local, some things will be more global. But the whole thing should have the ability to be networked. And climate change makes for one ecosystem in any case.

Then there is the ecosystem of apps. I have the same mental image of that in some ways, people and organizations should be able to create an app ecosystem from small pluggable apps that can message each other, act as client/server with each other, etc., however all these architectural considerations work out. There should be all different combinations of apps available to be plugged in. I suppose you could consider each of these an ecosystem, like the one Mutual Aid Network has, and the one FairCoop has, etc., but that doesn't seem that useful. Even those ecosystems will need to message each other.

So, in both cases, my mental image is better served without ecosystems that are closed off from other ecosystems. I want all ecosystems to be able to internetwork on some level.

On the other hand, it is not a big enough deal to me to actually block if most people want it, we probably don't know, and I think we all will go on experimenting and time will tell. Unless I am missing something that we need to understand better about each other and our visions? Something about either technical limitations or decentralization or... ?

Perhaps detailed wording shouldn't matter -- it tends not to matter too much with people who have spent that required time getting to know what each other really means with the words they use -- but there remains in me the uncomfortable feeling that the exact words do matter, at least in the sense of poetry: the associations people have with the words.

To me, "ecosystem" is at best a simile -- maybe even just a metaphor? I'm happy using it as a word that generally points in the direction of what we mean, and as such it does a reasonable job. (I admit to using the word in this loose way sometimes.) But as soon as people start wanting to debate whether it should be "ecosystem" or "ecosystems" I feel we have gone too far, and it's time we changed to a wording that more effectively conveys more of what we want it to convey, to our intended audience (and who are they, by the way?)

I take well the point of @strypey that we are unlikely to get, and probably don't even want, a single monolithic set of apps. Also I appreciate @gregorycassel Greg's point, which I guess has something in common with the point I'm making here. We can posit an ecosystem with niches, and suggest apps to fill those niches, but are we really trying to define a set of apps in the first place, or rather scope out the nature and geography of the potential ecosystem?

Perhaps we ought to engage a poet, or next best thing, an advertising copywriter? ;)

From an ecological point of view, an ecosystem is NOT a metaphor, but the reality of living as a human (unless the name literally only is including the software, in which case I'd say change the whole name.) I was pleased to see the "s" as it's a way of including all the cats without tossing them all in the same bag, to steal a metaphor from the conversation I saw in my notifications that brought me here. (Great to see you @asimong !)

In addition to my previously stated concerns, I want to note the existence of Neutral Discussion Space which was created a couple of years ago (by Lynn, I think-- or maybe Bob?) for what I perceive to be practically the same reason that some people now desire to rename this group by adding an "s".

The description for Neutral Discussion Space starts with:

An intentionally neutral place, probably temporary, for people interested in working on increasing collaboration on software infrastructure for the collaborative economy, next economy, solidarity economy, alternative governance, open communication, etc. etc. etc. etc., anything in this realm.

To me that seems at least a bit closer to the goal of @strypey's proposal than this OAE group is. I think the NDS description suggests collaboration between autonomous projects. By contrast, our group description here starts with:

This is a neutral group to talk about how we can build a suite of interoperable, open source tools which support transparent, democratic, and decentralized organizing.

Admittedly there's lots of overlap in the full group descriptions; however, the key concept to me is this group's (frequent) focus on a suite.

Of course NDS has been practically inert, but I believe that's because its use has been practically merged into this group. And that's okay except that this group and the OAE name have held other specific purposes and potentials. Also, I reiterate my view that Loomio groups are much better for decision-oriented discussion (such as "a suite") than for general discussion.

I don't exactly want to work on "a suite". However, I strongly believe that many of us will eventually need to align on something with a scale of non-coercive, ungoverned adoption which is comparable to the use of http, html etc. I believe the best way to achieve that is by inclusive p2p development of an open technical standard, possibly with the IMO excellent name "Open App Ecosystem". About half of my work is focused on the development of such open standards; however, I do not care ultimately where each design element comes from! The world won't care about the creative provenance of open standards. The world won't care whether any persons (including me) tried to be part of any specific discussion groups or design teams.

I can't follow up on these complex thoughts properly now, but I want to acknowledge that my attitude toward blocking-- and its conspicuous effect on the Loomio "pie chart"-- is probably dissonant with some other attitudes. Likewise, my attitude towards people launching formal consensus-decision proposals where they aren't necessarily appropriate may be dissonant! There is no governed project here (including the discussion group itself) with any explicit decision-making process. Anyone with admin rights is actually free to change the group name anytime they want, although not without the potential for social effects. To me there's a deep difference between taking action with or without a formal decision process. If people want written consent for spontaneous proposals, I think they should be prepared for diverse feedback. (And perhaps they are.)

Anyway, I hope no one thinks that anything in my current position (or my consideration of its possible effects) is trivial, even if they don't understand what I'm doing. I've spent over an hour thinking & writing about this on a rare day "off" while preparing (insufficiently, hurriedly) for a special event. I'll get back to this later!

My reason for putting up this proposal was to dig into people's understandings of the goals of the OAE group, and goals for revitalizing the CTA, and see how much they differ and overlap. I'd particularly like to hear from the lurkers who are following the discussions here, but don't say much.

What @lynnfoster said about the "ecosystem" being the big picture of relationships between people/ orgs/ software resonates with me, which is why I decided to disagree with the proposal I put up (for now). But I note that Lynn's concept is quite different from that of @gregorycassel , in which the OAE is understood as a project to create a specific suite of apps, perhaps a whole software stack (apps + hosting infrastructure, Single Sign-on system etc), perhaps even a GNU-Linux distro that hosts the whole stack out-of-the-box (can you clarify the precise goal in your mind Greg?). I think creating an integrated suite of open apps is a great project, let a thousand flower bloom. But this wasn't a unique project when it started (RiseUp has been assembling and hosting an open app ecosystem since 1999), and calling it "The Open App Ecosystem (TM)" seems a bit like a calling a GNU-Linux distribution "The Linux Distribution (TM)" (although one distro almost did that ;) )

While I agree with Greg that Loomio works better for project-based teams than for general chatter, I disagree that a Slack-a-like would work for the types of discussions we've been having here. Chat apps are good for open-ended live chat ('divergent' discussion) but not so much for circling towards useful conclusions ('convergent' discussion), in a way people can follow over time. If the OAE Loomio group is earmarked for use by a team developing a specific set of software, then perhaps discussions not focused on that project (eg CTA discussion) would be best held on the Neutral Discussion Space group? Interested in people's thoughts on this.

If you look at the original OAE proposal, a suite of apps:

The Open App Ecosystem is a suite of integrated and open sourced apps which support transparent, democratic and decentralised organising.

And then it morphed, when lots of other people loved the idea and pushed and pulled in lots of different directions, as you can see starting to happen here:
https://www.loomio.org/d/zjURElS0/what-kind-of-culture-and-systems-do-we-want-in-this-loomio-group-

Thanks @strypey for your deeply reasoned feedback! I appreciate your push/prod to creative dialogue.

I note that Lynn's concept is quite different from that of @gregorycassel , in which the OAE is understood as a project to create a specific suite of apps, perhaps a whole software stack (apps + hosting infrastructure, Single Sign-on system etc), perhaps even a GNU-Linux distro that hosts the whole stack out-of-the-box (can you clarify the precise goal in your mind Greg?).

I reiterate that I don't want to create a specific 'suite' of apps with the name of Open App Ecosystem. I think OAE could be a good (untrademarked) name for an open source labeling standard which (1) is used without permission and (2) supports a simple, noncoercive and compassionate conflict resolution system for any apparently inappropriate uses of the label.

I note BTW that many tech standards such as http etc don't require any conflict resolution: by definition, you either observe their rules or they don't work! That's great, but I've always seen OAE and CTA goals as combining technical and ethical considerations. Ethical considerations, of course, can't be entirely coded into interoperability rules. Thus our longstanding challenges with OAE and CTA goals, although I'm confident this will eventually seem to be a brief hiccup of history.

As mentioned in my first recent comment here, even the lightweight development of an open (tech and ethical) standard "would require one or more agents to govern the development of the standard itself! " What I meant there was one or more designers or teams, which IMO always govern their own work either informally or via explicit structures. I do wish that this Loomio group would focus on developing one or more such teams. Of course I can't create that focus through personal desire-- nor can I spend much time cultivating it, because I have even more urgent goals.

BTW I am working to develop open source distributed application software stacks, and I'd eventually like for most stacks to consist entirely of apps which meet an OAE-type standard. However that work is autonomous from my interests here in developing one or more widely shared standards.

I'll add a comment in the main thread regarding the active proposal.

I reiterate that I don't want to create a specific 'suite' of apps with the name of Open App Ecosystem. I think OAE could be a good (untrademarked) name for an open source labeling standard

Thanks for these clarifications @gregorycassel . I think where I got confused was when you said:

the key concept to me is this group's (frequent) focus on a suite.

Rereading that comment in full, I can see now that you were talking about a suite of standards, but your use of the word "suite" threw me. In the context of software, "suite" has often been used to talk about swiss-army-knife apps like Open/ LibreOffice, or the original Mozilla (before Firefox and Thunderbird were spun off into separate apps Mozilla was a huge beast with a browser, email client, HTML composer, calendar etc).

If I understand correctly now, you're saying we need a set of standards for inter-operation between open apps (and suites of apps), one that can be documented and refined from practical experimentation between existing apps, and implemented by future apps that want to inter-operate. I agree! This is roughly what I mean by:

gathering knowldege about how dev teams and user groups can create Open App Ecosystems, and documenting pre-assembled toolsets that worked well for each distinct use case

Further, you see Open App Ecosystem as the name for this set of standards. This seems as good a name as any other.

What I meant there was one or more designers or teams, which IMO always govern their own work either informally or via explicit structures.

Again, if I understand you correctly, you are proposing that this Loomio group function as an informal standards incubator, with different teams using subgroups to work on different areas of inter-operation. For example, one team might work on realtime chat between apps, while another team might work on exchanging calendar data between apps. I'm guessing that most of this work would involve testing the use of existing protocols, and agreeing on standard ways of combining them for a given purpose, in order to avoid protocol proliferation.

Yep that's about where I am, although I might define a dual purpose for standards: technical and ethical interoperability. (Given that I define "interoperability" simply as mutual compatibility, and that certainly can apply to ethics as well as tech requirements.)

I'll need to come back to the rest of your comment (especially regarding the potentials of this Loomio group) later, because it deserves deeper consideration.

This is from Soumaya Ben Letaifa, a friend of Sensorica, It's about business ecosystems, but I think also might be instructive for our use of the term and our thinking about what it means, and whether we want more than one of them or already have more than one of them whether we want them or not.
https://www.academia.edu/10252910/The_uneasy_transition_from_supply_chains_to_ecosystems_The_value-creation_value-capture_dilemma

This is not meant as an argument for or against an "s". I voted to agree, but I really don't care very much.

Having finally found some time to reflect, I think my initial attachment to the OAE name (for an open interoperability & ethical standard) was reflexive and at least a little excessive. Certainly I'd agree that this group discusses a potentially unlimited number of systems, regardless of whether we use the term ecosystem for any of them. I'm currently leaning toward Open App System or Open App Standard as an alternative to OAE.

I still think that Open App Ecosystem is a better name for this group than Open App Ecosystems. For whatever it's worth however, I'm "unblocking" due to reduced personal concerns over future use of the OAE label, as well as recognition of the inclusive and respectful discussion here.

How about "open digital ecosystems"?

open digital ecosystems is more expansive than open app ecosystem(s). However if we're going to be expansive I'd probably prefer to go all the way and say "open tech".

Anyway, I'd prefer to define the precise goal of any project or team before getting picky about names/titles! I've been attached to the "open app" concept for years and I still am; however, that's a specific level of design/ organization which certainly doesn't cover everything in open technology. :)

Names are important to the degree that they sum up the goals and scope of a project. I agree with @gregorycassel that OAE works because an open ecosystem of open apps is the goal, and inter-operation between apps is the scope.

Replacing "app" with "digital" implies a much broader scope, with a corresponding need to involve a much wider cross-section of people than open app devs and users. We have a better chance of achieving practical results, as a new(ish) forum for informal standards work, if we focus on a much narrower scope than existing standards bodies like IETF or W3C.

I agree with @strypey on "digital". I came here to create open apps that could interoperate as ecosystems. I assumed they would be used, and often created, in human communities as well, and that is what seems to be happening with Communecter, DigLife, Fair Coop, and Moinho. And it looks like some of those community efforts could interconnect and share apps, as may happen soon with Communecter and Fair Coop.

I just nudged everyone who has not responded yet (but is part of this group) to vote. To me, since OAE actually has no governance doc or decision making process or constitution.... I’m not sure how valid any decision would be anyway? I think the first step towards collaboration would be to (try to?) define some of the above in order to galvanise a viable working group... ?But perhaps that’s a job for the CTA rather than OAE... because I like the way this group has existed for ages as a place to simply discuss ideas and ideals... but, that said, I do think it’s high time we sorted our s*** out and work out how to genuinely collaborate... 🤔

Hi @olisb what do you think should be sorted out and what do you want to collaborate on? (And do you think the "s" is really critical to any of that?)

As the discussion continues, I start to see a few attitudes that I think are important for an Open App Ecosystem, no matter what we call it. :)

1. An app ecosystem that is created in the context of a specific group needs to be completely open source, including documentation helpful for other groups to install it and adopt or adapt it. People should not assume that everyone should join their group or their installation, but rather see the value of freeing the software so other groups with different needs and cultures (organizational and other) can adopt it. It all should be part of the global commons because nobody can ever be completely right about what is needed for everyone. (I sense there is some disagreement on this, so I hope we can talk about it openly and figure out if we can collaborate, or if to agree to disagree for now, and see how things work out later.)

2. I think we need to make sure that we aren't thinking "monolith" in terms of an ecosystem, especially if that means more top-down. I think especially during this period of lots of experimentation and lots of unknowns, things will be very messy. And I don't know when they might start settling down. But if we all are striving to make the technology as flexible as possible in how it can connect to other apps, that can only help. An example: We have been developing ValueFlows to be a standard economic vocabulary, and most would agree that it is useful to have a standard vocabulary if you are trying to stitch together some quantity of current and future apps. But.... some apps have existing api's, some people feel they need more domain specific vocabulary (such as the food consortium people).... to the rescue, Communecter has been working on a vocabulary translator. Cool! For me, one ecosystem can be crazily networked, with many diverse centers. So it is more a question of developing bottom-up, but also looking for the connections; respecting group membranes, but not assuming any limits on where connections and interoperability might end up being useful.

The only caveat I would add is that open standards, by definition, can be implemented by proprietary apps too. Successful ones usually are, as both a result and a cause of their growing network effect.

So we had some discussion about the issue of fragmented groups of people. I pointed out that using streams of comments and replies, I believe is a primary component in creating a very expensive set of boundaries between similar organisations. Too expensive, imo, to fix without actually building an argument mapping tool that just grows out of a tool like loomio

There are some other ideas that are seminal. But the core one that was shared was to change the data architecture for everything one person in the open room at the end of the day on Friday said "thats what we are doing", I think they are part of this core group. Does anyone know who that is?

FYI @christopher7 I'd guess that your goals here are related to my "metadata-mapping" goals with some open prototypes such as Inclusive Design System and (more of a long term goal) Community Resource Description Framework.

I strongly agree that people get fragmented by, shall we say, excessive reliance on streams of comments and replies. Written discussions can be very helpful IMO, as long as they serve a limited developmental/ design role.