Grand plan — CommunityOS

[erlend-sh]

Note: This is a WIP document. I had this lying around for weeks as an unfinished note, so I’d better just publish it incomplete so we can continue it together.

My primary identity stack

to sufficiently express my identity as a netizen I require..

• max-access/signal group messaging: Discord erlend#1111

• secure & sovereign group messaging: Element (Matrix)

• local-area network messaging: Telegram

• first-contact messaging: Gmail [email protected]

• collective thinking: GDdocs/Notion

• knowledge accumulation (& exchange): Raindrop.io / Inoreader / PocketCasts

• publication firehose: Twitter

• publication stream: Reddit

• public, static identity: Linktree/GitHub

• personal, dynamic identity: Google/GitHub

They’re all (somewhat interchangeable) components of an overarching Community-platform in the making. Not one single app, but rather the entire stack I want as a community-professional as well as a regular participant. Both use-cases can and should be commercialized, for the betterment of The Commons.

Some of these tools are partially open source already, but by the end of 2023 I'd really like most of them to be opened up. That'll require some complete migrations on my part, like I recently did with GetPocket (fully proprietary) to Raindrop.io (open source client).

It'll also require a lot of building, because the open version of the tools I need won't come from the proprietary tools dominating the status quo. Thankfully, a lot of people are already working on the open version of the tools needed for the Community OS stack, so cOS will happily default to these applications.

Building on the terminology of Digital Streams, Campfires and Gardens:

Conversation around the Bonfire 🏕️

Status quo	Transition	End-state
Discord	Revolt/Linen	Revolt(+Matrix)
Telegram	-	???(+Matrix)
Element	-	Revolt(+Matrix)
Gmail	CubeMail	Dust+Stalwart Labs (+Postmoogle/Matrix?)

Thinking in the Garden 🌳

Status quo	Transition	End-state
GDdocs	Notion	Subconscious
GetPocket	Raindrop.io	Teacher-app(+ActivityPub/Noosphere)

Flowing in the Stream 💧

Status quo	Transition	End-state
Twitter/Tumblr	Tumblr/Mastodon	ActivityPub (ChatterNet)
Reddit/HN	Lemmy/ChatterNet	ChatterNet (ActivityPub)

Adding to this outer layer, we include the inner core: Identity, I.e. the self.

Conversing, Thinking, Flowing SELF

Status quo	Transition	End-state
Linktree	-	Weird
Google/GitHub	GitHub/Matrix	Matrix/Chatternet

Key technology

Web standards

• DID (see UCAN or ChatterNet).
• webauthn
• activitypub
• matrix

Tauri

I predict ALL of the app-archetypes listed above will exist in the form of a Tauri-based app by 2024. And by then, Tauri Mobile will be stable.

Rust

Rust is undeniably next-gen, leading the charge for The Great Rewriting. Maximized performance without foot-guns is a huge force multiplier on its own, but Rust is so much more than that.

Links-app as MVP

Weird-app is the smallest possible beginning of this larger meta-app (a CommunityOS).

Weird starts us off somewhere in between business- and private-users. It appeals strongly to would-be professionals who wanna get their very first homepage started with ease.

These users will largely be interested in a free offer though. And while we will keep building out a free offer from the start, we will quickly have to start recommending (and helping) anyone who wants a free option to self-host for now, because we don’t (yet) have VC money to offer free at-scale.

Through various milestones of increasing feature complexity, weird-app will evolve as:

1. a personalized calling card.
2. an identity aggregator (and validator of external identities.)
3. an identity provider

Weird-app stack

Website generator: SvelteKit
Desktop app: Tauri
(Optional backend: Axum)

Extensions and Integrations

Centralized Identity: Ory
Distributed identity: chatternet (+keyoxide?)
Messaging: Revolt (+Discord)
Blog: Write.as, Tumblr
Notes: Noosphere/Subconscious, Mintter, (Notion)
Microblog: tumblr, Mastodon, Bluesky, nostr
Articles: Raindrop.io, BookWyrm, (Pocket, YakRead, Matter)
Podcasts: Listennotes+Teacher-pod (PocketCasts)
External messaging: Email, Matrix, Signal, Telegram…

(Send message through any platform, with a link to Connect Forever. I want to know if I’ve sent a message to a user on any of my connected messaging APIs.)