This is different from a forum in that you’re explicitly working with a select group of others in a small team to complete a concrete task within a given time window.

Or to put it in simpler terms: for the Summer Season we are looking for developers to both vote on and then work towards completing a two-month long project. This could be fixing a bug or adding a feature to an existing Fediverse project or creating something new.

The benefits to the participant are:

• They’re collaborating directly with others who also have an interest in doing whatever is most effective towards growing out the Fediverse. There’s a lot of the people in the community who want to help out and see the Fediverse grow, but don’t know where to begin. This is meant to be a place where people can pool their efforts and ideas.
• Since we’re breaking stuff into two-month sprints, it also is intended to serve as a relatively short-term commitment which can give development experience and give people within the community a chance to know each other.
• Since we’re putting what to work on to a vote, this is also an opportunity to put your ideas and input for what is most needed out there, and if you’re convincing enough, get others to work on it alongside you.

The benefits to the Fediverse (and free-software as a whole) are:

• Developers are no longer working separately on their own stuff, which is an issue which caused fragmentation. Instead, we’re focused on coordinating people’s efforts to fixing stuff where it’s most needed.
• It helps offload work from central developers or non-profits, which could hopefully serve as a “federated” model of software development long-term if it succeeds.

Let me know if you have further questions.