I have been following the developments of the @bonfire #Fediverse software for some time now, particularly their #OpenScience extension, because I see it as a future manifestation of open, interactive, publication-based #SciComm on the #Fediverse: http://openscience.network

A few days ago the first pilot was presented that is also self-hostable: https://openscience.network/setup/
However, looking at its current state, I can only take that achievement with a grain of salt.

One of the reasons why the Fediverse is so independent and resistant to central takeovers is because it does not rely on global identity service providers. This is precisely what sets it apart from other #BigTech platforms, as well as Bluesky. However, regarding the development of the Bonfire Open Science flavour, it has become apparent over the past few years that the Bonfire developers are increasingly taking a #ORCID-centric approach.

ORCID is a global centralized identity provider that relies entirely on the infrastructure and services of US #Hyperscalers. Anyone who gets involved with ORCID submits to them being the single point of failure with all its consequences, similar to #Cloudflare (btw. guess which provider orcid.org runs on), and that is exactly the opposite of what decentralized networks are about. The organization behind ORCID is also supported by some of those big publishers, who ultimately were the reason why there had to be a counter-movement in the first place, which we now call Open Science.

Anyone who integrates providers such as ORCID into decentralized technologies is probably letting #BigTech in through the back door. #Scholia, which is based on #WikiData, offers a reasonable alternative to ORCID. Its technical infrastructure is independent from big cloud providers, large publishers cannot buy their way into its community, and it even discloses the code for its platform itself.

There is nothing wrong with having an optional feature for importing data from ORCID. However, I find it highly questionable to make user registration dependent on this service provider. I hope that in the future, attention will once again be turned to local SSO authentication services, good old-fashioned email registration, and ORCID integration will become optional.

Edit: In the initial version of this post, I stated here that the current pilot even enforces the use of ORCID. In reply to this post, the Bonfire developers clarified that ORCID integration is optional and they are offering multiple authentication methods including email. In response, they have also corrected the setup guide linked above, which initially gave the impression that ORCID integration is currently mandatory.

#Hyperscaler #Centralization #Science #Bonfire

Bei der etwas anstrengenden #Orcid Maske ist man ja versucht, seine Literatur einfach nur in #WikiData zu erfassen und im Orcid auf einen #Scholia Link zu verweisen. Nur hat man dort wiederum meist das Problem, dass die übergeordneten Werke zuerst modelliert werden müssen....