felix stalder
There must be is a growing understanding that something like Mastodon is part of a public infrastructure and hence needs funding. It could be Europe's a answer to US/Chinese Social Media. Let's build 10km highway less und fund this instead.
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RT @WolfieChristl
At a certain scale, relying on the magic of self organization and free software spirit, on highly committed DIY enthusiasts and on a few thousand euros a month won't do it a…
https://twitter.com/WolfieChristl/status/1589606225318391809
Nov 7, 2022 at 1:51pmWeb
Show threadberkes 🐝 🚐 🏄 🌱Nov 7, 2022

@festal In the same way that it makes sense for governments to fund, build and maintain streets, railroads, canals, harbours, as public infrastructure, I think we should look for the same here.

Rather EU, or local govts funding development, and improvement of the software, infra, cloud etc for the fediverse. Or provide funds where admins can apply for grants etc.

To me that makes more sense than these govts hosting mastodon servers for their citizens themselves.

Show threadConor Collins 😷🇺🇦🌱Nov 7, 2022
@festal a word of caution on public funding: it should not be at a level where the organisation could be threatened by its removal. I’m pretty new here, but I think the best funding model is one with a wide base of small individual donors.
Show threadAngus MacPhersonNov 7, 2022

@festal and as it grows and become increasingly impactful, governance infrastructure will need to grow along with it.

Funding, growth, and governance.

Show threadMartin NuttyNov 7, 2022
@festal @klillington, I question whether any of us really has a handle on the cost associated with running a decentralized network like this. I assume government funding would come with certain strings attached that may not be palatable for people here. The beauty of decentralization is avoiding overbearing influence by anyone entity. The challenge is the maintenance of server instances which can snap out of existence relatively quickly
Show threadfelix stalderNov 7, 2022
@mnutty @klillington I don't think the running instances should be funded. There, I agree, independence is important. But I don't see the issue with funding the development of the platform. that is hard and often ungrateful work.
Show threadMartin NuttyNov 7, 2022

@festal @klillington

To date Mastodon, led by Eugen Rochko seems to have handled dozens of releases reasonably well since its inception in 2016. Mastodon software utilized open source standards, so the software is essentially in the public domain akin to Linux Can’t say I understand exactly how this is being financed, maybe another reader can point to me to resource. Could be the financing of development is already solved

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software)

Show threadfelix stalderNov 7, 2022
@mnutty @klillington Agree, they have done an amazing job, and hopefully contimue to do so. But an infrastructure that relies heavily on a one-person company is just unstable. Open Source or not. Most major open source projects have paid contributors and that's a good thing. The q. is: how much money is needed to really compete and where does it come from. Donations, public funding or the market. I don't see other option.
Show threadBill DayNov 7, 2022
@festal I am not so sure. Linux might be the model. Yes, it eventually achieved massive corporate buy in, but not at the expense of its integrity pursuant to the GNU General License. And the idea that we should emulate the Chinese spyware — oops, social media — model makes me shudder. We need to keep the government’s paws off of the means of communication.