Other open app ecosystems

StarCounter has a pretty different idea of "open" than (I think) most of us do. Freemium business model, Windows only (as of now), can't find their source code (or at least it is not prominently linked), and they seem to think that "open" apps should all use their framework...

glad you mentioned that too Bob ;)
https://starcounter.com/product/ says: "Starcounter is a combined in-memory database engine and application server for ultra fast development of high performance business applications. It is a true in-memory application engine. It was invented to let ISVs concentrate on building next-generation business applications without glue code, complex architecture, and expensive infrastructure. Less code. Better apps." and then wades into details of their proprietary systems and pricing - not much that's open about that imho!

The Mozilla post looks more interesting but is from almost 7 years ago! Anyone know if there have been any more developments of the OAE idea within Moz since then?

best
Oli

More from Mozilla:
* prototype
* marketplace
* utter failure

In other words, they gave up on the whole idea and now just want you to make progressive web apps on your own, but no longer in anything like an ecosystem. Not that their first set of ideas was an ecosystem, either: just a marketplace of apps. Not the same thing, if you ask me.

Surprise, surprise. How hard it is to conceive properly of something that merits being called an "ecosystem". To me, that seems beyond the reach of any individual; and equally beyond the reach of any hierarchy.

My guess is, thus, that an essential ingredient in the genesis of a planned ecosystem is that there needs to be a group of suitably talented people working together in genuine collaborative synergy. Of course, an ecosystem can happen without a plan, but probably won't display the characteristics that we value.

How to arrange?

We continue to work patiently toward this goal, although not much of our work has appeared in these Loomio threads recently. We have been buried in several related projects, all of which are feedins to OAE in one way or another.

We continue to think that the difference between a bunch of open apps, which are all wonderful, and an open app ecosystem, is that the apps work together for some ecosystemic purpose beyond the features of any single one of them.

So we work on apps for economic networks. I can imagine subsets of those apps which would manage alternative energy networks, or for educational programs. We are now working on something like that with http://learndeep.org/

I suppose purely social networks could provide other ecosystemic purposes, but not so interesting to me.

It's comforting to think of you, @bobhaugen and others patiently working away on this. You express the vision nicely: "apps work together for some ecosystemic purpose beyond the features of any single one of them."

My implicit question, which I will now make explicit, is: how does the way we work together affect the eco-systemic quality of our collective outputs? Or, more on thread: are there lessons we can learn from the most eco-systemic other other initiatives; or could we perhaps guess (no more) what doesn't work so well, by looking at their limitations?

"a group of suitably talented people working together in genuine collaborative synergy. How to arrange?"

IMHO this is task for the CTA - which is why I am still working on building something viable for this very purpose... as I see it the CTA's role would be to help coordinate (facilitate) a global discussion between "a group of suitably talented people working together in genuine collaborative synergy" to help define a 'road map' or some 'framework' or 'processes' through which such a groups could begin to define the tasks required to build a genuine OA 'ecosystem' :)

I'm easy about the name or banner we do this work under. And that's because, if we are working really well, the banner will not make any difference. What matters to me about the banner is the message that gives about the modus operandi -- who controls it; how it is governed; how decisions are made; how people express their care for each other and their listening for each other's views; how that care is enacted.

So how about looking first at the desired characteristics of the interaction and its governance, and then seeing which banner seems best suited to doing things that way?

Firefox, ironically, crashed when I first wrote a reply here...trying again...

My personal plans in relation to this group include:
* Long-delayed signup for DigLife, to learn more about their setup, because from the chats and demos, it looked to me like they already got some flavor of an OAE working: different open-source apps with single-signon and navigation, with some degree of data-sharing and interaction between the apps, including a bot that can do some of the integration. That's a very superficial overview. I'm sure @jimwhitescarver could do better.
* Try the Communecter vocab mapping tool to map between an API using the ValueFlows vocabulary and the Gitllab API.
* This last will be done in the FairCoop context, which has their own suite of apps with single-signon, but so far, no data-sharing. And some people who are falling in love with the OAE idea, although they have not connected here yet.