Federation Module

Source: View on GitHub / Propose an edit

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

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.

Scope

• 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

• 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

• 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

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

• 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?