Improving the dat project repository organization

[aschrijver]

(NOTE This proposal is part 1c of Positioning, vision and future direction of the Dat Project)

In https://github.com/datproject/discussions/issues/70 you'll find a chart of the current dat-ecosystem, and a conclusion that it can be improved. This issue has a proposal for improvement:

datecosystem

Github organization for official modules of the Dat ecosystem

Repo name	Current name	Remarks
dat-node-cli	dat	remove one overloaded use of 'dat'
dat-node-api	dat-node
dat-js-api	dat-js
dat-hyperdrive	hyperdrive
dat-hyperdrive-http	hyperdrive-http
dat-hyperdrive-network-speed	hyperdrive-network-speed
dat-hypercore	hypercore
dat-hypercore-protocol	hypercore-protocol
dat-hyperdiscovery	hyperdiscovery
dat-multidat	multidat
dat-multidrive	multidrive
(other official dat-*)	(same)	remainder of green modules, 16 modules

Every repository is self-contained:

• user manual (markdown)
• api documentation (inline with code, e.g. jsdoc)
• examples (code snippets included in user manual, api docs)
• code
• tests

datproject

Github organization for community-facing websites, non-code repositories

Repo name	Remarks
web	datproject.org, the central community hub
docs	docs.datproject.org, architecture-, protocol-, user- and API- documentation auto-generated auto-aggregated
discussions	discussion, questions, feature requests, ideas
roadmaps	roadmaps, release planning, development strategy, ongoing projects
style	visual design, assets, branding, renamed from design
awesome	awesome page, renamed from awesome-dat

datattic

Github organization for archived repositories that are old, outdated, abandoned or just experiments

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Next part: Provide high-level project tracking of ongoing work and roadmaps

[aschrijver]

Given that a lot of the 'official' dat project modules currently are dispersed in repositories belonging to @mafintosh @karissa @joehand @juliangruber and others leads me to following questions:

• Does this subdivision reflect who is the primary responsible person for a particular module?
• Does every core team member have full access to each of these repositories?
• Does every core team member actively monitor the whole of the 'official' ecosystem and jump in if other members are unavailable (respond to issues, merge PR's, change project config, TravisCI, etc.)?
• Do you have overview yourself of all modules, to maintain consistency and compatibility?

[juliangruber]

Some of the modules exist independently from dat, like for example hypercore and hyperdrive

[aschrijver]

Yes, they have their independent uses. But they are foundational to the dat project. Without them no dat project. Its just a move to make it more consistent, nothing else changes. Besides the README's state they are part of dat project.

The reason you don't like the dat- prefix is maybe more to do with the term dat being overloaded about 4 or 5 times (dat = [dat project, dat archive, dat cli, dat api, dat technology, dat et al, ...]). In my proposed awesome page I correct a number of wrong uses of terminology and changed dat to dat archive in many occasions to get a more consistent use of domain language.

[juliangruber]

Since nodejs is also foundational to the dat project, shall we rename it to dat-node? :P

[aschrijver]

Ha ha, no, because it is not created by dat core team, does not mention it belongs to dat project..