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+++ title = "Announcing Forgers Guild" date = 2022-10-18

[taxonomies] tags = ["plans", "conference"] +++

Forge federation is a new area of the Fediverse that is evolving. Its potential is huge and the vision one of "Federated Software Development". A new technology landscape is emerging that might cover the full breadth of the Free Software Development Lifecycle (FSDL) and foster an ecosystem of projects and communities that can compete with proprietary platforms such as GitHub.

In order to get there the Major Challenges that ail the Fediverse must be avoided. And with Forge Federation entering new areas the opportunity exists to do that right from the early start.

We are preparing for an Ecosystem Alliance that can ensure the long-term health and sustainability of the field. We'll explore objectives, opportunities, questions and open issues in preparation of an Alliance Kick-off Meeting to be held later this year (2022).

"The Forgers Guild"

At the Social Coding Movement which is planned to be 'officially' launched in Q4 2022 the idea to "unionize free software" and organize into Software Guilds is maturing. When combining different plans and ideas an ideal name for forge federation ecosystem alliance is: The Forgers Guild.

Besides an open and friendly terminology of towns, residents, artisans, craftsmanship, apprentices etc. there's a branding and positioning opportunity to make "forging software" a concept proudly applying to the Free Software Community.

Providing feedback

Everyone is highly encouraged to add their thoughts and feedback to this notepad, and discuss points in the Forge Federation general matrix chatroom. Also your input is most welcome in Discuss Social Coding where it concerns the broader FSDL, and in related Social Coding chatrooms.

Ecosystem Alliance

Objectives

What do we expect / desire to be major goals of the alliance? Add your feedback.

  • Welcoming and friendly movement that offers clear incentives for active participation.

  • Open governance and processes fitting to our libre culture and grassroots nature.

  • Living open standards that are actively maintained, so they will evolve and mature.

  • Vibrant ecosystem focused to onboard newcomers and fosters technology adoption.

Candidates

If a person or an organization is interested to become a Participant, but aren't sure, then add it below, together with considerations / open questions.

  • Forg.es: Future home and dedicated website for The Forgers Guild?
  • ForgeFed: Federation protocol for enabling interoperability between version control services.
  • ForgeFlux: WIP ForgeFed plugins for forges that don't have federation support.
  • Gitea: A Git hosting software with WIP ForgeFed support
  • Bonfire: Federated toolkit with issue tracking functionality

Participants

Add yourself below if you want to be part of the alliance. Give description how you see your role in the ecosystem. Note: It is all just brainstorm.

Social Coding Movement (click to expand, and see open issues)

This movement is a loose affiliation of Communities and Projects and (hopefully) a steadily growing number of Social Coding Practitioners.

> [**Social Coding**](https://coding.social) is about the
> recognition that software development itself is mostly a social
> process. The movement is dedicated to addressing the many
> Challenges faced by the free software community and crowdsource a
> pattern library of Best-practices and Tools to tackle them. In
> doing so it wants to leverage the Fediverse to maximum extent.
  • Though the movement has an umbrella organization, for the ecosystem alliance you can consider its position as a vertical with many touchpoints to specific elements of the FSDL.
  • Social Coding co-shared community provides services to affiliated yet fully independent Communities and Projects, such as Forum and dedicated website space.
  • Contact: @humanetech (fedi) / @circlebuilder (matrix)
</details><br>
  • Forgefriends: a forge federation project. Observes the ecosystem to better position itself since its goal is to be useful to developers. Added by Loïc Dachary, member of the forgefriends community.
  • Gna!: a free forge ecosystem for free developers. Provides feedback on the implementation of an experimental business model. Added by Loïc Dachary, member of the Gna! collective.

📌 Ideas / open issues

Crazy thoughts on what an ecosystem alliance can do, and things that should be addressed.. add them below (give a handle to matrix/fedi account).

  • Social Coding Movement has the concept of 'being under its umbrella'. The Forgers Guild would be an ideal candidate. This participation comes with its own benefit package (to be updated, elaborated).
  • Research business models (see the business model for federated online services example of Gna!)
  • Match developers with funding (there is more funding available globally than developers willing to do the work)
  • Idea or open issue

Kick-off Meeting

Participants (add yourself to the list):

Date: TBD

Agenda:

(draft, preliminary)

  • Introduction, who's who?
  • Rationale for an Ecosystem Alliance: The challenge
  • Forgers Guild: Shared vision, common mission
  • "What do I want?", objectives for participants, benefits
  • Next steps

Please see here for the original draft