Drew DeVault sir at cmpwn.com
Mon Feb 22 17:13:52 GMT 2021
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On Mon Feb 22, 2021 at 12:07 PM EST, Pierre-Jean Baraud wrote:
I am very new to the game (this is my first mail in this mailing list)
and I never really participated in any "protocol ecosystems" in
making. Nevertheless, is there not a risk in that game that's the
most popular implementation defines the rule and hence, the game is
not being right, but being popular?
Yes, that's a risk indeed. I think it's a well-managed risk in Geminiright now, we have a huge selection of client and server softwares tochoose from and no single actor has a dominant role. And unlike webbrowsers, new Gemini software can be written and useful in the span of aweekend, providing an easy escape hatch - but this will change if we'renot strict in limiting the scope of the protocol.
That is very nice to clarify that. But it still raises the concern of
such risk in future by an actor of similar size: will the stick not
overcome any rational debate?
I do realize that srht.site has the potential to become sizable enoughto carry substantial influence on the direction of Gemini. However, Idon't want it to do so: srht.site should only be a boon to thecommunity, not a risk or a political tool. I pledge to not use it as aplatform for pushing any opinionated decisions which are not alreadyrepresentative of the community consensus.
I can't say this for the next service that comes along, but hopefully ithelps to set the tone.
Also, unrelated, but I have learnt a lot from this mailing list
through these different debates and I think I start to have a better
idea now of Gemini's philosophy thanks to you all (and I'm sure many
of my first intuitions would have first been considered as
anti-pattern / recreating the web)ยท This learning has been very
organic, almost chaotic and only thanks to the people posting "wrong"
initiatives here as the answer they receive served for me as
guidelines as "Gemini philosophy". Is there anywhere a more
structured document, the equivalent of "unix philosophy" but for
Gemini that would express the intention behind some of the
"limitation"/restrictions of the platform that a newbie like me could
refer to instead of learning "by chance" this through some response
here and there (and sorry if it is an obvious link that I am not aware
about) ?
The FAQ helps a lot:
gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.gmi
But I think a lot of people don't read it, or perhaps forget about it,because many of the proposals oft floated are clearly not in the spiritof Gemini as laid down by the upstream documentation.