Decentralized Data Compliance Working Group

A Polycentric Governance Lens on Data Infrastructures

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) - Funding policies for data infrastructure promote open data sharing to drive positive social impact. However, concerns regarding the long-term management...

Department of Decentralization | Department of Decentralization

The website for the Department of Decentralization

Report | Decent Patterns

Decent Patterns is a collective effort to further the adoption of decentralized technologies by providing open tooling and resources for the community.

a practical guide to decentralization (for my friends) - tim's tinkerings

A Polycentric Governance Lens on Data Infrastructures

Funding policies for data infrastructure promote open data sharing to drive positive social impact. However, concerns regarding the long-term management of data within and across distributed infrastructures can hinder data sharing. We draw upon the concept of polycentric governance to demonstrate how collaborative practices of data curation, in preparing and maintaining data for (future) sharing, provide a solid foundation for understanding data governance within data infrastructures. Based on a qualitative case study of a distributed ecological network, we investigate the conditions under which data are managed as a shared resource by local actors to ensure the long-term (re)usability of data. We contribute to CSCW by conceptualising data curation as a complex form of governance practice with multiple centres of decision-making, each of which operates with some degree of autonomy in data infrastructures. A polycentric governance lens on data infrastructures advances the CSCW conception of data curation as a collective governance practice that can cultivate a data democracy culture within and across organisations, empower individuals to be accountable for their data, and foster a mindset shift toward decentralised data governance.

Decentralization: Worth The Wait — Open Tech Strategies | Blog

Ethan Zuckerman has a piece in Wired that says building decentralization tools is a sucker's bet. He and his coauthors, Chelsea Barabas and Neha Narula, mention the FreedomBox, which I helped lead, as an example of how difficult this stuff is. They point to a list of things that make decentralized efforts prone to failure and conclude:

01 - Decentralized Web: An Introduction - Resource Guide

This resource guide was created to accompany Session 01 of the Webinar Series Imagining a Better Online World: Exploring the Decentralized Web. This session introduced essential DWeb concepts to library workers through demonstrations, resources, and examples of decentralized technologies in action. A video recording of this session has been archived by the Internet Archive and it can be viewed here.

Patterns | Decent Patterns

Decent Patterns is a collective effort to further the adoption of decentralized technologies by providing open tooling and resources for the community.

Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web

The decentralised web, or DWeb, could be a chance to take control of our data back from the big tech firms. So how does it work and when will it be here?

Decentralizability

What makes software decentralizable? Immutable data, universal IDs, user-controlled keys.

Decentralized Information and the Future of Software - Draft

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Paradigm shifts for the decentralized Web

The answer to these questions varies with different degrees of decentralization:

Centralization, Decentralization, and Internet Standards

Despite being designed and operated as a decentralized network-of- networks, the Internet is continuously subjected to forces that encourage centralization. This document offers a definition of centralization, explains why it is undesirable, identifies different types of it, catalogues limitations of common approaches to decentralization, and explores what Internet standards efforts can do to address it.

Decentralisation as a shifting mental framework

Programming note: every week I send out an email newsletter. It contains all the articles I published that week, as well as an additional essay that has been not been published elsewhere yet. This is a republication of last week’s essay I send out. If you’re interested, subscribe below to get all the updates directly […]

The ecosystem is moving

Considerations for distributed and decentralized technologies from the perspective of a product that many would like to see decentralize....

Centralization, Decentralization, and Internet Standards

This document discusses aspects of centralization that relate to Internet standards efforts. It argues that, while standards bodies have a limited ability to prevent many forms of centralization, they can still make contributions that assist in the decentralization of the Internet.