Hi! I'm on the engineering team at SI and I recorded a live demo of using its new UI on the Steam Deck. System Initiative is what we believe to be the future of infrastructure automation and management.
The new UI is a work in progress and this is a raw, unrehearsed demo showcasing how it runs on a Steam Deck (barring a few retakes and cuts). I came up with the idea awhile ago and I thought this would be a fun way to share where we're headed with SI.
There is absolutely still value in writing for its own sake. Personal blogs should first and foremost be for yourself. Long-form writing is a great skill and compiling your thoughts in one location is a great idea.
Not to mention that while you may not host the blog yourself, you will own the content. You can transport it anywhere, regardless of the shape of your blog.
As far as brand, finding readers and sharing content goes, I think plugging your blog posts here and there to your communities and social media platforms of choice is sufficient. Being algorithmically savvy about the process can be good, but posting to your favorite Discord server, your favorite social media network, and even just emailing/texting/DMs people works well too. Also... HN is good for this too, of course.
> Like I said in a comment further down below, I think my initial reaction and post were way too harsh (i.e., not constructive and cynical), sorry for that. It's great that you're taking the initiative and trying to build something, and I wish you all the best with it.
Thank you for being understanding, I appreciate it.
> To be more constructive: I personally feel that such efforts have an easier way of getting of the ground if you first build consensus with a smaller group in private. Ideally this would include some of the influential people in this sphere, (devs of larger projects in the space, cloud providers, famous rustaceans, ...). Otherwise the initiative does not have a lot of credibility (because it hinges on the words of someone most people will not have heard of).
In hindsight, having the folks I've spoken to in private be part of the "launch" and PR reviews could have prevented some confusion.
That being said, I did not want to compose a large core group without giving the opportunity for new people to join.
It was a trade-off to launch small with the intent to start public partnerships with well-known people in the future.
I've spoken to some of these folks in the past, and we intend on collaborating/cooperating if the community's desires warrant it (e.g. a new channel in the official Discord).
> 1) It gives the impression that this is an already established organization, when in fact it is merely a call to action.
I would argue that it's an established organization, but we need to be clear that one of its first goals is to gather community feedback on determining where it should go next.
I did not want ideation happen behind closed doors,
It's established with the intent to be...
1. transformed
2. de-scoped to purely maintaining the website and itself
> 2) You never actually say what you are trying to do. Even after all of this, I'm still not sure what you want to create. A community? A main code repository? A specific technical solution? You say you want to "enable the usage of Rust in the cloud". But that's super vague. I can use Rust in the cloud today already, so what are you _really_ after? And _how_ are you going to achieve that?
This is a good point.
I've touched on this above, but it exists to facilitate community ideation and to maintain a website to connect people interested in cloud native Rust.
I believe the issue here is that I've mistakenly blended the mission with the goal(s).
The mission tackles the "why", which is the enablement piece.
That doesn't lean into the "real action".
The goal(s) are what we are trying to do.
Currently, that includes maintaining the existing repos, and gathering community feedback via issue/discussion filing.
There's an issue tracking splitting the "mission" from the "goal(s)", and I think it'll make the answer to this much more clear: https://github.com/rust-cloud-native/core/issues/7
Hmmm I see your point. Buzzword bingo is certainly not the intent, that is true. Perhaps, we need to be clear that while our _mission_ is to "enable the usage of Rust in the cloud", our _goal_ is to maintain existing repos within the org and take issue/discussion filer input for next steps.
I believe the issue is that I've blended "why we exist" with "what we are doing". I'll fix that. Thank you for the feedback.
Of course! I do not want us to disrespect maintainers/owners; quite the opposite actually. Please never hesitate to file an issue for this kind of thing.
These are fair points. I've addressed them in comments within the main thread.
We (me, at the moment) am making changes to the original post and the repositories themselves, to clarify intent here.
TLDR: there was a bit of a "the chicken and the egg" problem with cloud native Rust. My approach might not have resulted in the cleanest "launch", but with few volunteer hours and nothing similar in existence, I wanted to at least provide a sandbox or canvas for issue/discussion filers to help dictate where it goes next.
The reason why the GitHub organization was created BEFORE anything else was because of a tweet.
I originally tweeted that I created the organization, and wanted to see if people were interested in using it (regardless of ownership).
It unexpectedly blew up, and with encouragement from replies/DMs, I decided to add least plant a flag.
I've addressed this in more detail in response to the top comment, but this is exactly correct.
I'll admit, I could have expressed the intent more clearly, but there's been gridlock here, so I created the organization with the intent of doing _something_.
I'd be happy to re-architect the website to make it clear that site exists to endorse projects and not the other way around. The latter is definitely not the intent, so if it reads that way, we should change it. Please feel free to file an issue: https://github.com/rust-cloud-native/rust-cloud-native.githu...
EDIT: I have added a section explicitly stating the projects showcased are not officially affiliated unless given explicit consent from owners/maintainers.
Thought I would add some clarity here: many comments here are correct in that the announcement is largely symbolic. The substance is minimal because this is a "call to arms" more than anything. Since there's been some gridlock in creating a central place for Rust Cloud Native _anything_, I mainly just wanted to start _something_.
I can also see how the exchange of "I" and "we" was confusing. I talked to several folks about how to start this, so I did not want to claim sole ownership of ideas.
This was created entirely with volunteer time, and would ideally not have its course determined from a BDFL (me, in this case). If people want a Discord, a Zoom meetups, events hosted, etc., we will do that. I do not want to burn out by creating a bunch of low quality community locations prematurely.
These intentions could have be articulated more clearly, and I may edit the announcement post to do so. Thank you.