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Q&A

Welcome to Codidact Meta!

Codidact Meta is the meta-discussion site for the Codidact community network and the Codidact software. Whether you have bug reports or feature requests, support questions or rule discussions that touch the whole network – this is the site for you.

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Q&A How does Codidact avoid repeating Stack Exchange's mistakes?

As Monica already explained, making the software open-source does a lot to reduce the barrier to entry for competitors. This provides both an escape hatch in case Codidact does end up following SX,...

posted 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭  ·  edited 9mo ago by meta user‭

Answer
#2: Post edited by user avatar meta user‭ · 2024-02-15T19:55:15Z (9 months ago)
grammar
  • As Monica already explained, making the software open source does a lot to reduce the barrier to entry for competitors. This provides both an escape hatch in case codidact does end up following SX, but also is a self-breaking prophecy. The fact that it people could just host their own instance easily will help encourage humility in management, I think.
  • A second step could be taken that would reduce the barrier even more and strengthen the protection against codidact developing problems. The licensing/software availability barrier is solved, but there is still a large advantage in the form of critical mass. If codidact grows large, and then management decides to be evil, yes others could run their own instance but they would have the challenge of acquiring enough users, just as codidact does now.
  • The solution to this would be federation. If codidact instances could share questions and answers, this would empower the userbase to vote with their feet. Of course, federation is technically laborious to implement, and there are some nuances to exactly how it would work. However, it looks like there's already a system for importing questions, so that can be built on to set up full federation.
  • As Monica already explained, making the software open-source does a lot to reduce the barrier to entry for competitors. This provides both an escape hatch in case Codidact does end up following SX, but also is a self-breaking prophecy. The fact that people could just host their own instance easily will help encourage humility in management, I think.
  • A second step could be taken that would reduce the barrier even more and strengthen the protection against Codidact developing problems. The licensing/software availability barrier is solved, but there is still a large advantage in the form of critical mass. If Codidact grows large, and then management decides to be evil, yes others could run their own instance but they would have the challenge of acquiring enough users, just as Codidact does now.
  • The solution to this would be federation. If Codidact instances could share questions and answers, this would empower the users to vote with their feet. Of course, federation is technically laborious to implement, and there are some nuances to exactly how it would work. However, it looks like there's already a system for importing questions, so that can be built on to set up full federation.
#1: Initial revision by user avatar matthewsnyder‭ · 2023-06-09T20:43:40Z (over 1 year ago)
As Monica already explained, making the software open source does a lot to reduce the barrier to entry for competitors. This provides both an escape hatch in case codidact does end up following SX, but also is a self-breaking prophecy. The fact that it people could just host their own instance easily will help encourage humility in management, I think.

A second step could be taken that would reduce the barrier even more and strengthen the protection against codidact developing problems. The licensing/software availability barrier is solved, but there is still a large advantage in the form of critical mass. If codidact grows large, and then management decides to be evil, yes others could run their own instance but they would have the challenge of acquiring enough users, just as codidact does now.

The solution to this would be federation. If codidact instances could share questions and answers, this would empower the userbase to vote with their feet. Of course, federation is technically laborious to implement, and there are some nuances to exactly how it would work. However, it looks like there's already a system for importing questions, so that can be built on to set up full federation.