---
title: Opening and decentralizing collaboration protocols
tags: summer-of-protocols-sop
description: Opening and decentralizing collaboration protocols
image: https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/3540691454/1535710532/1500x500
---

<h1 style="text-align: center;">☀️ Adam Hurwitz Summer of Protocols (SoP) Ideas</h1>
===

<p style="text-align: center;
font-style: italic;">
<a href="https://summerofprotocols.com" target="_blank">summerofprotocols.com</a>
</p>

# Opening and decentralizing collaboration protocols

> There’s only two ways to make money in business: One is to bundle; the other is unbundle - Jim Barksdale (CEO) and Marc Andreessen (Co-founder) of Netscape [1]

This also applies to how decentralized sources of information can centralize over time. As information moves faster than ever this poses great risk to collaborative decision making if information's origins are not known (closed-source) and controlled by a few gatekeepers (centralized).

The vision of open-source collaboration protocols is to expand the ability for communities to coordinate and build with open access to information. Open information (OI) [2] include relevant resources from public domains, individuals, both company and project's documentation, and etc. Open information makes use of collective knowledge that has the potential to simultaneously cover more surface area and be more in-depth than more centralized sources of truth. Improving and stewarding these protocols is critical for society in order to solve systemic problems and avoid dangerous potentially misleading information.

This will research tools that utilize interoperable languages like Markdown and version control systems like Git that make up open-source collaboration protocols. That is how communities and teams effectively collaborate and manage governance of information. Currently, the majority of tools used by communities and teams, even those building open-source products and services, are closed source and/or more centralized. Tools that have a range across the open-source and decentralized spectrum are HackMD, GitBook, Notion, Skiff, Akord, and etc. Emerging networks like IPFS and Arweave store information in a more decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) structure. There are opportunities for improved governance to manage roles and access control with the rise of cryptographic technologies through self-ownership of both financial and non-financial accounts and decentralized identity.

I've begun thinking about how decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), like Safe ecosystem's SafeDAO can explore open-source and decentralized protocols. [3]

Potential outputs
- Proof-of-concept(s) to test and highlight promising emerging tools and processes researched
- Potential product improvements for the teams that are receptive to on-going feedback throughout the research process
- Recommendation of opportunities to improve on a specific tech stack and on more general protocol design
- Real-world adoption of technologies/tools/processes by a community and/or team working towards open-source and decentralization

[1]: https://a16z.com/2013/12/18/the-future-of-work-cars-and-the-wisdom-in-saying-no/
[2]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GeoN04-zFjhnI5TMTitFdSTXF0i6w5TRVbXKmtmg5Lc/edit#heading=h.4fw7vzd41nzf
[3]: https://forum.gnosis-safe.io/t/safe-open-guides/2539?u=adamhurwitz.eth