Name of the standard: is it the right time for a new one?

[RachL]

Among us, we refer to the standard as the "DFC" standard.

This comes from the name the FR group chose when starting to work on the topic - "Data Food Consortium".

Data Food Consortium is now a non profit structure in FR and another local group as been created in the UK: Food Data Collaboration.

While working on the new website in FR we noticed it is a bit hard to explain the difference between the non-profit and the standard, especially when presenting FDC as well. FDC contributes to the standard but not to the FR non profit (at least this is the path we have chosen for now, we don't have a global international structure).

Also this confusion makes it hard to communicate that the standard is open to everyone and not just a french initiative.

I think a dedicated name for the standard would ease communication and is perhaps the opportunity to find something more catchy/correct in English? 😁 .

What do you think?

ping @datafoodconsortium/coordinators @datafoodconsortium/ontology-maintainers @lin-d-hop @mkllnk

PS: if the result of the poll is "yes" a dedicate group will be task to facilitate the finding and implementation of the new name: we can leave these details aside for now // let's focus on whether this is a good or bad move at this stage.

[lecoqlibre]

Thank you Rachel for creating this discussion.

I think DFC has always wanted to welcome all contributors in a project to build a common and open standard.

It seems that we are having difficulty uniting. Today the DFC standard can appear owned and managed by DFC France in the eyes of partners.

Why that? I would like to know the opinion of our partners.

Maybe we're not inclusive enough on Slack as many discussions are in French. We may also have a lack of common governance or rules that are not clearly defined.

But it's true that it's confusing to have the same name for both the French association and the common standard. This would perhaps be less true if DFC were the name of the federation of all local initiatives.

I voted yes, more to express the fact of having a distinction between the French local initiative and the standard.

I think a good idea would be to get closer to what the W3C does. This organization standardizes the web and that's a bit what we want to do too. It has well-established governance rules. Perhaps we could take inspiration from it or even propose to develop our standard in a W3C working group?

[RaggedStaff]

Thanks @lecoqlibre, as someone who joined the DFC a while ago, I'd like to comment on some of my experiences.

I recall initially joining the fortnightly calls (en Francais) and it being very welcoming... tbh I found it difficult to follow sometimes (my French isn't quite good enough) but in general I was much more aware of what was happening within the French project, and the standard. Since I've not been able to attend those calls, it's much harder to know what's going on... the meeting notes don't seem to be comprehensive & several times things have come up, that have been discussed in that meeting, which are not visible to those outside the meeting. I already see this improving for with Ontology group and I'm hopeful, as we continue to institute more specific meetings, this will improve as we will have spaces to discuss specific topics and issues (of governance, ontology & technologies) that relate to the standard.

I think we also need to formulate about (and publish) a clear joining process for both the working groups, and for the standard itself... so that others can join us.

The other thing I've noticed is that, even now, I don't always have the access I need to contribute to the standard, and the path to get that access is not obvious or transparent. I think we need to have a clearer joining process for other countries/projects to allow them to meaningfully contribute to the standard. Obviously we need to gatekeep our assets, and I think we need a transparent process that allows everyone to see how they can request & get the access they need to contribute to the standard.

[mkllnk]

if the result of the poll is "yes" a dedicate group will be task to facilitate the finding and implementation of the new name

I'm in favour of changing the name if we can find a good one. 😉

If we can't find a good alternative, I wouldn't change it just because we voted on that.

I think that we can find a better name though. As mentioned here, the standard should not be bound to the French DFC. An obvious first idea would be Food Data Standard. But let's explore more options. It's about food. It's about data structures. It's mostly about exchange of data, including an API. It's not quite a protocol because it's lacking a lot of detail about app behaviour. It's not a language either. It's also not a format, because it can be represented in different formats. The central piece is the ontology. Would it be right to say that the current standard is an ontology and a collection of API guidelines? Food Ontology Interface? Better you start a proper group for this. 🙃

[RaggedStaff]

I would also favour a name change, and I agree it needs to be a good name.

A few thoughts that stick out for me:

• We are focused on Local Food/Short Supply Chains... I think this is a key differentiator for our standard than, for example GS1 or other global, industrial food standards.

• I wonder if there would also be a way to capture the ethical focus of many of our producers around Agroecology. In the FDC Vision, the FDC governance circle has adopted the FAO 10 Elements of Agroecology as underpinning a food system that is fair & equitable for all life. I'm curious where the French project are on that ? I see elements that support that approach in the DFC vision, but nothing specifically about Agroecology, would that be something you would be opposed to ?

• On the flip side - I suspect we probably want to avoid the word "Open". Whilst I think we are all committed to the standard being Free (as in speech) software, I think the term Open is likely to cause confusion with open data and all the potential exploitation that entails. 😖

• I agree with @mkllnk - I think the primary function of the standard is to underpin a network of data exchange, it feels like digital infrastructure to me. Noting that in the UK we've adopted an (unofficial) strapline of "Fostering Diversity at Scale."

• On a more poetic note - I would love a reference to mycelium (as a democratic infrastructure network that underpins life), although I wouldn't want things to get confused with your plateforme @lecoqlibre ! 😉

[RaggedStaff]

Small update on this. Following on from the Technical Circle call (of 29/01/24) @RachL & I will be forming a working group to come up with a new name for the standard.

We will post updates to this discussion.

If anyone else would like to get involved, please contact one or both of us here or on Slack.