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Organizational processes

in decentralized software

Why are we here?

Q

* Decentralisation is going real Great, full of energy, generosity

and enthusiasm.

* People give time, fund autonomous project

via crowdfunding and other collective means

* Uniquely diverse Fediverse

* Creating alternatives to

monopolistc situations

* Towards a network effect of generated

from the diversity of our efforts.

Why are we here?

What is the organisation and regulation in decentralized projects?

*Decentralization as a response to censorship:

- Multiplying sources of information,
- Redundancy of information,

*Its easier to discuss in a small community

then on a centralised platform:

- CoC allowing for a variety of relations to free speech,

- The community based conception of freedom of expression,

* Possibility to move and organize a separate ecosystem.

Thinking our

project together?

*What do we want to achieve
- Challenge monopolist capitalist organisation of the network
- Inclusive and Anti-authoritarian

*How do we want to achieve it?

- Developing decentralised softwares based on a shared common protocol

*What do we have at our disposal to do so?

- Great people, supportive diverse and dynamic
- "Knowledges": technical political social

*What could prevent us from achieving it?

Is the Answer Only a

Technological One?

*Code is Politics

*But no protocol displays political or opinionated position.

*Is Federating everything the solution? what if Facebook adopts

Activity Pub ?

Organizational issues in

decentralized software

Who takes decisions?

* Existing Collective Organisation Processes:

W3c working groups, forums, git, etc...

* Distributed Process, Distributed Governance Model pertaining to each community.

* Tyranny of Structurlessness: most decisions follow an organic process,
along the path of developers initiatives, not taking time to clarify decisional
processes, aims, organizations, or clear pathway for our ecosystem.

Organizational issues in

decentralized software

The hero narrative (and its problems):

Building beautiful projects. one commit at a time.

Alone.

While drinking liters of caffeine to be awake.

Never asking for help.

Never taking a break.

Then your beautiful creature is out:

You are the only one who truly knows it.

One day you burn out.

The end.

Organizational issues in

decentralized software

The hero narrative (and its problems):

*The sometimes thin line between authoritative and authoritarian

*Long term sustainability is uncertain

*Missing perspective on how you could improve your project

Feminist principles and practice:

a resource to improve organizations

Two possible and complementary approaches:

1) Local approach:

focus on the smaller scale: your community

2) Global approach:

focus on the larger scale: include issue affecting society at large

Feminist principles and practice:

a resource to improve organizations

The local approach:

*Care: stimulate conversation on group health and also individuals health;

identify those patterns which are detrimental

to both personal and community health

*Skill sharing: not just a feminist principle for sure, but experienced

with success

Feminist principles and practice:

a resource to improve organizations

we want to talk about

power!

But we don't want to talk about how to be nicer human beings:

Feminist principles and practice:

a resource to improve organizations

The global approach:

*Intersectionality:

Deal with power in a systemic and long term perspective

Feminist principles and practice:

a resource to improve organizations

Intersectionality is a concept used to describe the ways

in which oppressive institutions (racism, sexism, homophobia,

transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.) are interconnected

and cannot be examined separately from one another.

The concept first came from legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989

and is largely used in critical theories, especially Feminist theory, when

discussing systematic oppression.

(From: geekfeminism.wikia.com)

Feminist principles and practice:

a resource to improve organizations

Having honest and open conversations about power

makes communities stronger when dealing with its issues:

-Internal issues: when someone has all the power (like an hero, yes...)

-External issues: when there are powers which damage or exploit our projects

(i.e. surveillance agencies, monopolistic companies etc)

"Nothing about us without us":

Claiming a political space as tech developers

* Engage in conversations happening around you actively looking for them

* Make a political statement in your project´s manifesto or documentation

* Show explicit solidarity for social causes which are important to you

Feminist principles and practice:

a resource to improve organizations

Intersectionality is not about giving answers, but about asking questions

-What is the impact of my work on the job market?

-What kind of users (and especially non-users) I am excluding?

-What is the impact of my product on the planet?

-In which ways could I be reinforcing existing social problems and inequalities?

We are not going to solve all these problems but we should keep them in mind

How does this relate

with organization?

Thinking about organization in a systemic way:

-the system is the whole society

-include external actors in your developing decisions even if not directly related

-do not only focus on positive aspects, but actively deal with

the presence of problems

We can respond on a larger scale:

*providing tools and discussion to counter-power the hegemonic

technological narrative

*produce a new imaginary for future generations

Final remarks

This is just a start more ressources:

Overcoming the "hero narrative with antiauthoritarian principles"

Feminist Principles of the Internet:

Readings:

Feminist issues in the free software movements:

About the interests of a feminist digital economy:

https://www.genderit.org/feminist-talk/column-open-software-movements-open-content-free-culture-where-are-women

http://abcdd.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Poster_Hyrarchy_en.pdf

https://feministinternet.org/sites/default/files/Feminist_principles_of_the_internetv2-0.pdf

https://www.genderit.org/feminist-talk/why-we-need-%E2%80%98feminist-digital-economics%E2%80%99