Today the Atmosphere Community Cooperative got announced to help support the atproto ecosystem.
Introducing the Atmosphere Community Cooperative: a new organization that will be governed by and for the organizers, developers, artists, and many others who are building tooling, services, and community on the AT Protocol ecosystem.
It's something that was clear was needed after the 2026 AtmosphereConf in Vancouver1, but I initially thought we could maybe avoid a singular entity and operate in a more distributed way.
Cooperative Principles
has been on a zine making kick, and this goose one is awesome.
The classic version of an entity for supporting a software ecosystem (or a conference series for an ecosystem) is to make some sort of non-profit or foundation. I've helped create a number of things like this, the Drupal Association being my first one.
Drupal Association
I got my start in open source and community building with the Drupal Association, formed to support the Drupal open source CMS.
I'm here with Dries Buytaert and Kieran Lal. The photo is by Kris Krug and you can see it in the album with other OSCON 2005 photos0 in Portland, Oregon.
I've talked a bit about how I think the single foundation model isn't a good pattern any more.
That's in part because we've come a long way from the single code base ecosystem of the early 2000s: protocols mean many implementations in many programming languages, and coordination at different layers, from network operators to standards bodies.
I've also been looking for concepts and principles that go beyond "open source"2. The DWeb Principles have been something that resonate for me.
And so: a co-op. Something that anyone can join, including other organizations. Rather than "the foundation isn't doing X or Y" and pointing fingers, a co-op is a platform for joining and getting things done - with infrastructure and other resources available.
The Atmosphere Co-op is just getting started. The Governance Research Circle is planning out how to structure including from 100s to potentially 1000s of members, how to invite in projects and form circles to coordinate and do work.
We'll be gathering more resources on "what is a co-op" both generally and specifically. You can get started by reading about the 7 Cooperative Principles3.
My role at the co-op
I've been supporting the growth of the ecosystem in at least a part-time capacity since August 2024. Now, I get to step into an ecosystem support role full time as General Manager of the co-op.
I'm also one of the core organizers of AtmosphereConf 2027, but this year we've added Guido as Co-lead plus event operations & creative from Moat , as well as Ms Boba as Web Mistress and Chad supporting operations & finance4.
Erin hasn't been sucked into the conference vortex, but has been doing heavy lifting on comms and content, as well as leading Governance Research.
More broadly, the co-op needs to move from people to roles. Much as I love it, I can't just be "guy who organizes the conference".
I'll be doing lots of fundraising, supporting other organizations, projects, and people, plus onboarding and documentation as people step up to volunteer and take on projects. Yes, more of what I've been doing so far, but as a full-time day job.
One other thing I've had a hand in, the Community Infrastructure Circle is going to need to grow a bit to support the operational needs of the co-op. The French government LaSuite apps LaSuite Apps + Atmosphere Accounts have been working quite well for the operations of the co-op, so they need to move out of experimental mode on my research infra5, and get hosted for the benefit of the co-op and other Atmosphere users. Let us know if you want to get involved with this!
Moving on from Ink & Switch
I'm stepping down from my role at Ink & Switch , where I've been in an operations role since November 2024.
What was supposed to be some part-time monthly hours supporting PvH and the rest of the team with operations, legal, and finance work ended up growing into very much an at least half time COO role. The lab expanded, and I helped setup corporate entities in Canada and the UK, and because of the ARIA grant, the team grew quite a lot as well.
I'm very mission aligned with Ink & Switch6, which is one of a very few independent software research labs, and even more unique with having made it to 10 years. Local-first and Malleable Software in particular are research areas that continue to inspire, and I see only more relevance for.
I continue to be inspired by "lab" style organizations7 and have some ideas on how more of that work needs to continue.
Thank you to Peter and the whole crew at the lab for having me for 2 years. Your work continues to inspire and I look forward to how things evolve and doing work, life, & conferences together!
Thanks to everyone that has supported me and the activities of the AT Community Fund and the past two conferences. It's been very inspiring and energizing to be in community with you all. I hope the co-op can add expanded governance and support to make it something that can last and pass on more good energy to people.