Federation Module
Source document: modules/en/federation/README.md / Propose an edit
Purpose
Section titled “Purpose”The Federation Module handles how autonomous organizations cooperate through shared protocols.
Federation is not a world government or central ruling organization. It preserves local autonomy, exit, forkability, and multi-affiliation while enabling interoperability.
Problem
Section titled “Problem”A single organization cannot handle all regional, cultural, legal, and domain differences.
If organizations remain fully isolated, trust, welfare, arbitration, audit, translation, and cooperation become difficult.
- Inter-organization participation
- Multi-affiliation
- Mutual recognition between organizations
- Local autonomy
- Shared protocol compatibility
- Compatibility after forks
- Inter-organization reputation principles
- Inter-organization audit principles
- Inter-organization arbitration
- Exit from federation
- Balance between shared standards and local differences
Out of Scope
Section titled “Out of Scope”- World government
- Central ruling organization
- Denial of organization autonomy
- Blocking exit from federation
- Forcing identical operations on all organizations
- Ignoring local legal systems
- Lock-in through federation standards
Relationship to Other Modules
Section titled “Relationship to Other Modules”- Identity: organization IDs, affiliation, permissions
- Reputation: inter-organization trust
- Audit: inter-organization verification and transparency
- Arbitration: inter-organization disputes
- Norms: federation rules and shared terms
- Infrastructure: interoperability and data portability
Initial Notes
Section titled “Initial Notes”Early work should define safety boundaries before designing a complete federation system.
Shared protocols should be minimal agreements for interoperability, not replacements for local autonomy.
Open Questions
Section titled “Open Questions”- How much should federation participation conditions be standardized?
- How should inter-organization reputation be shared?
- What happens to data and reputation after an organization exits?
- How should federation standards change?
- How can federation capture be prevented?