# Governance in the PLN

The [Protocol Labs Network (PLN)](https://www.plnetwork.io/) is a network of teams
that focus on different problems and have different needs but that are driven by a
shared mission. The more the network grows, the more sophisticated its governance
needs. This document outlines a high-level view of three areas in which the PLN
would strongly benefit from governance work and a preliminary description of the
kickoff work.

The PLN has a number of different shared resources:

1. Shared resources internal to the network (e.g. Spaceport).
2. Resources that belong to an open community but where most of the work is done by
PLN entities (e.g. IPFS, Filecoin).
3. Resources that belong to a wider open community of which PLN entities are just a
small contributor (e.g. IETF standards).

These resources all need to be *governed* (in different ways for each kind). And the
more we nucleate, the more we will need coordination so that these shared resources
can be managed effectively, in a manner that is sustainably open to the relevant
community, and without requiring each PLN entity to duplicate the work of others.

Each shared resource category has a different set of needs, but they all overlap in
being tied to governance & community issues.

## Internal Shared Resources

The [PLN](https://www.plnetwork.io/) affords its teams a set of services including
a [directory](https://www.plnetwork.io/directory/teams), regular events, training
from [Launchpad](https://pl-launchpad.io/), procurement via
[Mosaia](https://www.mosaia.io/), and more.

As we nucleate more, we would benefit from "thickening" the network further, which is
to say from increasing network onboarding, usage, and the creation of new network
services. We need to be proactive in making information circulate, in getting teams
to use the services that exist, and in creating avenues for new needs that multiple
teams may unknowingly share to be addressed.

One key concern is that PLN teams can only be successful if they are supported by
shared infrastructure and if the network distributes information and creates serendipity
but they can only be truly *independent* if that network operates without a leading
hub company.

The Spaceport team has very helpfully
[opened a communication channel](https://github.com/orgs/memser-spaceport/discussions)
through which teams can submit and discuss ideas. In order to foster a stronger PLN
community and to lead towards network ownership, we should lean more heavily into
that direction: *we need to develop gradual ways for PLN teams to govern shared PLN
services as well as to operate them and be compensated for it when they work for the
collective*.

**Initial work items**:
- Work with teams to identify the smallest successful collective governance of shared
resource.
- Proposal for shared governance in PLN event organisation
- Proposal for flat information sharing in which people at the edges decide what to share
and follow
- NOT CLEAR YET: proposal for collective (or multiparty) alignment on question of PLN
strategy

## PLN-Heavy Communities

Many teams across the PLN participate in, lead, are heavy contributors to, rely on,
etc. a number of open projects that are complex enough to warrant governance that is more sophisticated and that enables greater levels of coordination than the benevolent dictatorship that suits smaller projects. This includes flagship projects like IPFS, Filecoin, or the DSAlliance
that are intended to be locked open (and, in the case of Filecoin, have a foundation
specifically dedicated to that mission).

These projects tend to have similar needs and issues:

- They require tooling to publish specifications or documentation.
- They have improvement processes and need a governance structure to operate them.
- They are open and used by a varied ecosystem but can at times face challenges
getting the community to fully own and operate them rather than relying on PLN
support.
- They need to interface with outside parties such as other projects or regulators.
- They have different constituencies (e.g. operators, implementors, users, storage
providers) who aren't represented as equal partners but should be.
- They have funds to support ecosystem evolution and those funds need to distribute
money in a manner that reflects the community's preferences and responds to stakeholders' needs in ecosystem maturity.
- They have events that need to be organised.

The endgame is for these projects to *not* be PLN-heavy, but that won't be
accomplished without a dedicated push and the creation of sustainable feedback loops. In order to achieve this, and because these projects
have a strategic importance across the network, *we need to build shared infrastructure,
practices, and processes to equip these projects with long-term community
governance*.

**Initial work items**:
- Share IPFS spec generation with Filecoin and libp2p.
- Iterate on [IPFS Governance Proposal](https://hackmd.io/@robin-berjon/ipfs-governance)
and learn from the [pattern library](https://github.com/kelsien/datagovernancepatterns).
- Iterate on [Decentralized Data Compliance WG](https://github.com/DDC-WG), notably on
[Blocklist Governance](https://hackmd.io/@browsers-n-platforms/blocklist-governance).

## Wider Commons

Some PLN teams participate in community governance of broader commons such as
Internet or Web standards. Such communities exist at various stages of maturity
and effectiveness, but we don't generally have as much of a responsibility to
lead them to success because they do not typically thrive specifically thanks
to PLN participation.

However, we would benefit from coordinating our participation so that we can
share best practices, strategize contributions and positions, and make sure
that we don't spend more time on these projects than otherwise need (as they
can easile be time-consuming). In order to achieve this, *we need to develop
a community of practice across the PLN to share knowledge and strategies for
open source, open standards, and participation in wider commons in general*.

**Initial work items**:
- Coordinate landing multiformats at the IETF
- Align on web3 push inside W3C