Mastodawn

It’s not about features. It’s about culture.

#ActivityPub comes out of the #openweb tradition.

#Bluesky comes out of a split lineage - #openweb roots, shaped by #dotcons incentives, with an #encryptionist upbringing.

#OMN (Open Media Network)2d ago

Why do we keep bringing this up?

If we want a better web, we have to stop pretending this is just about “bad tech companies doing bad things.” Of course, they are-that’s what capitalist incentives produce. The real question is: what are we doing differently? That means accepting some uncomfortable truths. The better path will be less convenient, at least at first. We will have to socially support things that used to look free on the #dotcons. Because the cost we didn’t want to face is simple: the #openweb was always […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/why-do-i-keep-bringing-this-up/

#OMN (Open Media Network)5d ago

Do you remember when technology felt like a way forward?

Do you remember when tech felt like a way forward? That moment’s gone on the mainstream #closedweb path. What we’ve got now is something else entirely. Tools like Palantir and Project Maven aren’t about truth or insight. They’re excuse generators. Power does what it wants, then points to “the data” as cover. That’s the product. And the people building this? Still cosplaying as the good guys, well-paid servants of the #nastyfew, wrapped in the fading myth of being “freedom […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/do-you-remember-when-technology-felt-like-a-way-forward/

#OMN (Open Media Network)Mar 28

Rebuilding Journalism as Commons (not a product)

https://hamishcampbell.com/news-culture-on-the-fediverse/ It should be obvious that we need a path back to good journalism - journalism that sheds light on facts, connects the dots, and lets people trace those dots back to sources. This is what allows us to share, question, and discuss within our own trusted communities, and then spread that knowledge outward through federation, always linking back to the source. Right now, the #mainstreaming path is broken. It’s sometimes hard for people […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/rebuilding-journalism-as-commons-not-a-product/

Rebuilding Journalism as Commons (not a product) – #OMN (Open Media Network)

#OMN (Open Media Network)Mar 27

Gates vs Bridges: the obscure politics of the #geekproblem

In the #geekproblem mindset, crossing a protocol flow is a gateway were in #openweb terms, it’s a bridge. That difference is not technical - it’s social - the difference between CONTROL and TRUST. A gate is something you lock, permission, authentication, enforcement were a bridge is something you cross, connection, flow, relationship. In the physical world, we don’t put gates on bridges as a default, but in software, we keep rebuilding them, and then wondering why things fragment. RSS […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/gates-vs-bridges-the-obscure-politics-of-the-geekproblem/

#OMN (Open Media Network)Mar 23

The Digital Commons: The Ground We Already Stand On

At #NOAW event I talked a lot about the digital commons so thought it might be useful to write a post grounding this. The digital commons are not a future vision, it’s something we already have. At its simplest, the digital commons are the widely used #4opens digital resources of software, knowledge, data, and culture created collectively, governed by communities, and made available for public (re)use. This is the native path of the #openweb it's been around for a long time, it might be […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/the-digital-commons-the-ground-we-already-stand-on/

witchescauldron Mar 17

The problem is not that the current #dotcons systems are broken, the problem is that they are working exactly as designed. Growing the #openweb – Notes for Burning Down the #dotcons (and building an #OMN) https://hamishcampbell.com/growing-the-openweb-notes-for-burning-down-the-dotcons-and-building-an-omn/

Growing the #openweb – Notes for Burning Down the #dotcons (and building an #OMN) – #OMN (Open Media Network)

#OMN (Open Media Network)Mar 17

Growing the #openweb – Notes for Composting the #dotcons (and growing an #OMN)

Today there are a lot of dishonest people - it’s become the default. Finding someone who is actually truthful is rare. So with this in mind, let’s stop being polite about this, what we’re living inside online right now isn’t “social media.” It’s a managed enclosure - a system designed to extract value, shape behaviour, and concentrate power. It's what I have been saying for the last 20 years. Call it what it is - digital #feudalism - The Lords, the Serfs, and the Server. When […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/growing-the-openweb-notes-for-burning-down-the-dotcons-and-building-an-omn/

witchescauldron Mar 17

#NOAW @FediVariety think a good #KISS path out of this mess is to move social communications to the Fediverse. But I’m going to say something that sounds controversial, but isn’t: they should not primarily use any of the current codebases, as they are kind of kludges.

The proposal is that they fund the production of three new codebases based on commons publishing. Why three? Because funding this would cost cents on the euro compared to what they currently spend. Why three? Because likely two of them will mess up, so we need diversity.

Why not use existing codebases? Simply because they are copies of #dotcons or #NGOs. But what they have achieved is the standardisation of code, protocols, and culture, and for this, we should thank them.

As this is a federated network, people can still access and interact with it from these existing tools. So widening the native #openweb adds to their value as well.

https://hamishcampbell.com/thinking-of-workshops-to-run-at-nodes-on-a-web-noaw-unconference/

#OMN (Open Media Network)Mar 17

A Note on “Security” for the #FOSS Crew

We need to have a clearer, more grounded conversation about “security” and what it actually means in the context of the #openweb. There is a long history of thinking in #FOSS spaces that security is something we can solve purely technically: better encryption, better protocols, better architectures. But in everyday life and practice, people need to work from a much simpler starting point - We do not trust client–server security. We only meaningfully trust what can be verified through […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/a-note-on-security-to-the-foss-crew/