Documentation is key to open source and well, everything.
Unfortunately, it is a tedious and often overlooked chore that really does hinder the long term success of any project that neglects this part.
I believe that #Hive may be the solution we need to solve the lingering documentation problem that many projects suffer from by giving an incentive to do the work and a feed back system to improve the work.
We have the tools available today that allow us to carry more documentation and distribution power than all of humanity could have even conceived of just a few years ago. This is great and we are seeing a huge impact on society already.
What if we took that to the next step and created an environment where all that technology is Open Sourced and freely available for anyone to create and enhance?
We have plenty of great quality software to get us through the cycle of collaborating, editing and distributing content. The frontier here is in the hardware; and that is coming also.
Capturing
There are a couple of Open Source camera projects that I have been following that are very slowly working on hardware options. The one I have seen around for a while is the Apertus. The other one that I only recently became aware of is the Octopus Cinema project.
Open Source Ecology is also working on a Raspberry Pi version intended to be capable of both documentation as well as controlling production hardware such as 3D printers and even other heavier equipment.
Collaboration
There are tons of “free” collaboration tools out there and they generally work very well. In the open source arena, however, the main contender is most likely going to be NextCloud. It is basically a Google replacement that you can control. It is a somewhat decentralized option in the sense that it is installed on a server and can be federated, but it is not “blockchain” style decentralized. With a NextCloud server, someone is controlling it and therefore it is subject to that particular person. I don’t envision more decentralized version any time soon.
It has every collaboration tool all wrapped up in a very nice package – except one…
Wikis: Many Open Source projects rely heavily on wikis for ongoing collaborative documentation. Interestingly, there are a few blockchain projects working on this.
Editing Workflow
Open Source Ecology wiki page on Open Source Film Studio
Curation
The Hive blockchain is probably our best platform for ongoing curation. A simple WordPress install is also a valuable open source companion simply for its taxonomy powers.
Distribution
LBRY looks like a clear choice for distribution. It can be used in so many ways to fit a project’s needs.
It would appear that a combination of WordPress, Hive and LBRY has all the power needed to develop, curate and distribute quality and flexible documentation that can also pay its own way, which can incentivize participation.
You can find more discussion about decentralization, open source and voluntary concepts on our Discord: https://discord.gg/5fPatJx