Mailing list first post / 2023 wrap up

[ninabreznik]

The point is to bring audience (like SC&S board, Knight foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Mozilla foundation board and other important grant givers from the past and other) up to date with Dat ecosystem

The summary should be professional and short and very easily readable (split into many short paragraphs or even bullet points).

Info we should try to include:

• Dat ecosystem is a legal form (501c3 through Open Collective, before through CS&S) (it can accept tax deductible donations - maybe to mention later when we ask for donations)
• consortium with currently 6 members has been formed toguide and supervise the process of interoperability between the projects
• manifesto documents the mission and rules which define the governance of the ecosystem and the role of the consortium (stewards of the ecosystem)
• previous stewards of Dat moved to the alumni and are supporting the ecosystem as advisers when they are able/needed.
• we archived dat project modules/repos that are not maintained atm to focus on our core mission to Work Towards Interoperability Between Ecosystem Projects
• our core values: Open Source, Modularity & Technical Inclusion, Local First & Cloudless, Social Impact & Cooperative Ownership, Data Sovereignty & Access Control
• dat project is now a broader group of many interconnected projects building p2p tech
• we created interview series with some of the projects & a demo recordings and AMA sessions with some projects (will be announced in the next newsletter)
• we updated the webpage and another bigger update is work in progress
• we are applying for the new grant to continue moving interoperability between projects further
• we are thankful for all the support throughout years and special thanks to all our open collective supporters and cs&s for the moving forward grant
• to support the ecosystem - join the discussions (social media links), donate via open collective, spread the word and try out projects and give feedback so we can improve
• thank you for being part of the community <3
• newletters will be sent when we have some announcement, next 2 will be sharing the interview series and the demos

[serapath]

some additions:

1. the history was dat, people know that. all active projects are somehow using dat and everyone on the mailinglist is probably kind of aware of that.
2. what is dat-ecosystem?
   • i'd say it is sharpening the profile/mission/vision of dat by archiving all the confusing parts and old parts and cleaning up, so that there is a nice overview over everything relevant
   • i'd also say it is a bunch of projects traditionally built on dat who know co-exist and strive towards interoperability to scale dat.
3. what connecs project in the ecosystem called "dat-ecosystem"?
   • if anything it is a common history and the wish to work towards interoperability with each other - any dat based project that doesnt care for interoperability will probably not join the dat-ecosystem.
   • interoperability is the common/shared long term goal, but how to get there?
     • this is what dat-ecosystme is a forum for discussing how to get there
     • there are many aspects to interoperability that can be helpful, such as:
       • building very modular
       • building open source
       • committing to specific standards
       • trying to re-use the stack shared with other modules
       • enabling users to own and share their data directly
       • ... etc ...

It is a process and how to capture that in a single word, a punch line or slogan, a paragraph or elevator pitch and a fully written out mission statement is the question. We do have some written materials already, we might still need to refine things, but i guess the mailinglist posts need to phrase it as good as we possibly can. It's an executive summary for an audience that cares and might potentially help dat-ecosystem with future funding opportunities.