On July 7 the project's initiative group held its first working meeting. Until then, everything existed as scattered conversations, notes, and sketches. At this meeting we tried for the first time to articulate the project as a whole and to lock in three foundational documents: the roadmap, the manifesto, and the values.
We deliberately start not with the product or the technology. First — principles and a planning horizon. Without that, any development turns into a string of tactical decisions with no overall direction, and within six months the project becomes unclear about what it even is.
If values aren't articulated in advance, they form along the way through random decisions. And then the project becomes whatever circumstances made it, rather than what it was meant to be.
The main debate of the first meeting was not about content but about form. Should we write a manifesto at all, or is that needless grandiosity for a technology project? We agreed that we should — but in a format that passes the test of "can you actually make concrete decisions by these principles, not just quote them on the website".
What we took into development
After the meeting we divided responsibilities: each of the three documents got a lead author and a circle of reviewers. The deadline — two months until the second meeting.
- The roadmap: a two-year horizon, with zones of uncertainty marked out.
- The manifesto: short, working, without declarative phrasing.
- Values (foundational values): five to seven principles, each with a criterion of applicability.
- The group's working principle: open minutes, voting on contested questions.
- The next meeting — in two months, on the technology stack.
The project's history in its current form is counted from this meeting. All later decisions rest on the documents produced from it.